Head of Creative Strategy, Soar With Us

• Proven experience leading large teams (20+ people minimum) - you've built, scaled, or led a department or function of this size, ideally within an agency or marketing services environment
• Track record building leadership benches - you've coached senior individual contributors into leaders, set progression frameworks, and built the kind of leadership bench that lets a department run without you in every room
• Strong commercial acumen - you've owned department P&Ls and are confident with budget, utilisation, and capacity modelling
• Process-led mindset - you know how to design and scale complex operating systems, and protect them from drift
• Cultural leader - you naturally set the tone for the teams around you. People want to work for you because you make them better
• Excellent communicator - you can present in an empowering and inspiring way, lead team meetings, deliver tough feedback with care, and write clearly
• Experience leading through significant change - you've operated in organisations going through transformation (restructure, scaling, M&A, model shift) and brought your team through it with momentum, not friction
• AI-literate and tech-enabled - you understand the trajectory of AI in creative and marketing, are comfortable using AI tools yourself, and can lead a team through AI-augmented workflow adoption
• Strongly Preferred (Adjacent Industry Experience)
• DTC brand-side at scale (Head of Creative / Marketing / Growth at a 7-9 figure DTC brand)
• Performance or growth agency leadership
• Creative agency with similar org complexity (production + creative + AM under one roof)
• Marketing services or large agency department leadership
• Games companies (deep operational experience managing large creative teams)
• Ex-management consultancy who scaled creative or marketing operations

Desirable

• This isn't a role for someone who wants to be deep in execution or write scripts
• This is a senior leadership hire - and the most senior people-and-operations role inside the department
• You will own the operational backbone of a 20+ person creative team: leading four Creative Leads, scaling process, building culture, driving commercial performance, and developing the next generation of department leaders
• The Group CCO holds the creative product innovation agenda
• The Creative Leads hold the craft and domain authority
• You hold the operating system that lets them both compound
• We already have deep creative strategy expertise in-house
• What we need is someone who has led high-performing teams at scale, knows how to build culture, develop senior talent into leaders, and bring the strategic and commercial rigour that turns a strong department into an exceptional one
• Your job will be to create the environment that our Creative Strategy team can thrive and grow in
• Line-manage four direct reports: 3-4 Creative Leads
• Cascade development through the layered structure: Creative Leads → Senior Creative Strategists → Creative Strategists → CS Executives
• Own the people strategy for the department: performance management, progression frameworks, capacity planning, utilisation mapping and succession
• Coach Creative Leads into confident, autonomous leaders - through difficult conversations, client escalations, strategic thinking, team management and coaching
• Build and maintain a department culture of ownership, curiosity, and relentless improvement - one where the team is motivated, and proud to work
• Be a true empowering voice and leader of the department
• If the Creative Leads are the strikers, you are the manager of the football team
• Own department structure, org development, operations, hiring, and team retention
• Champion process improvement and identify bottlenecks before they become blockers - from briefing workflows to reporting cadences to production handoffs
• Drive accountability through clear KPIs and a rhythm of performance conversations that keep the department sharp
• Lead the operational delivery and quality control of the Creative Lead leverage model (framework set by the CCO, scaled and protected by you)
• Develop the organisational structure in the department to allow for exponential revenue growth in the next 12-24 months
• Own the department P&L - EBITDA is your number
• Own department utilisation, capacity planning, and FTE strategy
• Own the Department Engagement Score (with a future target of >40% talent density)
• Support the commercial growth of the department - working with the CCO and wider C-suite to evolve the service offering, identify revenue opportunities, and contribute to business strategy
• Bring strategic and commercial rigour to SMT discussions - you're a voice on group strategy, not just departmental updates
• Partner closely with Account Management, Production / Post / Design, Growth Strategy, and People department heads to ensure seamless delivery and aligned priorities across the group
• Feed macro learnings, risks, and opportunities up to the CCO and C-suite
• Be a visible, trusted leader across the wider group - not just within the Creative Strategy team
• Contribute to department-wide rituals (Monthly Momentum, Friday shoutouts, quarterly reviews) and drive cross-pod knowledge sharing
• KPIs You'll Own
• Department P&L - Dept EBITDA is the headline KPI
• Department utilisation rate - sustained at target across all roles
• Department Engagement Score - team health, with a future talent density target of >40%
• Creative Lead leadership development trajectory - objective uplift across all four direct reports over 12 months
• Variable compensation: up to 10% of base, paid quarterly, tied to commercial KPIs