Job Description

Job Description

Job Description

Executive Creative Director

About the Role

We are seeking an Executive Creative Director of Creative who’s not just a creative leader—but a builder, doer, and relentless ideator. This is a high-impact role for a proven creative who thrives on pushing boundaries to deliver creative innovation.

You will report directly to our Chief Creative & Innovation Officer, supporting their vision and executing bold, award-worthy creative work across the agency. The CCIO sets the creative agenda—you help bring it to life with precision and originality.

You should be a self-starter with a strong creative point of view, who’s ready to step outside their comfort zone, embrace innovation, and lead multidisciplinary teams across traditional, digital, and experiential platforms. Your ideas must be mediable, data-informed, and culturally relevant—work that not only wins hearts but earns headlines and hardware.

What You’ll Do

• Partner closely with the CCIO to turn the CCIO’s high-level vision into tangible, cross-platform, and best-in-class campaigns across all accounts.
• Lead, manage and inspire the creative department as a champion of innovation and experimentation, challenging the team to think beyond convention and deliver unexpected, meaningful solutions.
• Build, develop and retain top-tier creative talent, and foster a culture of growth, curiosity, collaboration and excellence.
• Manage ideation and oversee execution across advertising, digital, social, and experiential—ensuring work meets the highest standards of creativity, craft, and impact.
• Be a hands-on leader—someone who generates ideas, shapes the work, and knows how to take it to execution.
• Integrate the latest and greatest AI-powered creative tools (e.g., Sora, ChatGPT, Runway) to enhance ideation, speed, and presentation.
• Help pitch, present, and sell through game-changing ideas to senior-level clients and stakeholders.
• Establish confidence and credibility with clients, aiming to become the “best creative director” on the client roster.

Who You Are

• A self-starting creative leader who doesn’t need to be told what to do—you're already doing it.
• A 360&degree; thinker who understands how big ideas scale across platforms—from concept to execution.
• Bold, culturally fluent, and comfortable in the unknown—you seek out new technologies, formats, partners, and ideas.
• Adept at AI-assisted creative development, and eager to harness technology to push creativity further.
• A digital-first creative leader which a track record of delivering ideas that are viral and buzzworthy.
• A strong executor who respects process, but isn’t bound by it—you know when to follow and when to flip the script.
• Excellent at building trust—with teams, with clients, and with leadership.
• Able to take on stretch assignments in related and/or adjacent disciplines (e.g, awards apps, agency initiatives, new biz)

Skills & Requirements

• A bachelor’s degree in advertising/marketing/communications or related field
• 15+ years of creative experience, with a strong record of leading standout, award-winning campaigns.
• A portfolio that proves your ability to create work that performs and wins—across categories and channels.
• Deep understanding of the full creative process—from ideation to execution to optimization.
• Experience managing and inspiring diverse, multidisciplinary teams.
• Proficiency in emerging AI tools and technologies that support and scale creativity.
• Proven ability to navigate senior client relationships and executive-level conversations.

What Success Looks Like

To thrive in this role, you’ll need to quickly translate vision into action, build trust with the CCIO, and set the creative bar high for the agency. Below is a roadmap of what success looks like—first in the short term, and then as a long-term creative force within the agency.

First 6 Months

Demonstrate Impact in the Work

• Bring at least 3 cross-platform campaigns (across various clients) to life that directly reflect the CCIO’s creative and innovation agenda. Ensure that at least one of these campaigns generates internal buzz, client love and industry attention/awards.
• Embed at least one emerging tool (AI, interactive format, or new media platform) into each major campaign effort.

Collaborate with the CCIO

• Meet weekly with the CCIO to align on priorities, review progress, and course-correct as needed.
• Co-author a creative “north star” for the department—3–4 principles that define how we show up creatively and culturally.

Elevate the Work, Everywhere

• Organize and co-host with CCIO, workshops across creative and client partner teams to raise the creative standard and reinforce expectations (ie showcase standout ideas, creative bar setting for key clients, etc)
• Roll out two process enhancements that speed up output and elevate creative execution.

Beyond 6 Months

Consistent Impact

• By year one, the bar for creative should be fully reset–with bold, standout work becoming the norm. The team should be operating at a higher level, consistently delivering ideas that push boundaries across all clients. Client expectations of our creative standards should be elevated.
• Gain 2-3 major industry wins.
• Ensure 50%+ of campaigns integrate innovation or emerging tech in a meaningful way.

Be the CCIO’s Creative Right Hand

• Maintain strong, aligned partnership with the CCIO—measured by consistent feedback, shared wins, and visible trust across the agency.
• Act as a true extension of CCIO and agency’s vision—able to lead the team with clarity, even when the CCIO isn’t in the room.

What We Offer

• Hybrid work model
• Cell phone reimbursement for remote work
• 20 PTO days for new hires
• A day off on your birthday
• 9 Holidays (not including shutdowns)
• Shutdown on Thanksgiving week
• Shutdown on Christmas week
• Flex Fridays – half days on Fridays
• Employee referral program
• 401(k) with company match
• Competitive medical, dental, and vision insurance

Equal Employment Opportunity

IW Group is committed to providing a safe, inclusive, and respectful work environment. IW Group provides equal employment opportunities for all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identification and expression, national origin, marital status, age, disability, genetic information, military status, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic established by local, state, or federal law.

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