Associate Creative Director

Role summary

The Associate Creative Director (Design) is a client-facing creative leader responsible for owning creative direction and quality across an assigned book of business (pods). This role bridges strategy and execution by translating client context into high-quality briefs, directing Art Directors and designers, and ensuring work ships on-brand, on-strategy, and optimized for channel best practices.

This is not a “big idea only” role. You will be deeply involved in direction, critique, systems, and delivery quality.

Key responsibilities

Client leadership & pod ownership

• Own creative direction and final sign-off for an assigned portfolio of clients
• Serve as the primary creative partner to clients (alignment, expectations, presentations as needed)
• Partner with PM/Client Services to manage prioritization, timelines, and scope
  
  
  

Briefing & context translation (critical)

• Attend client meetings as needed (kickoffs, planning, reviews)
• Convert meetings and client inputs into clear briefs that include:
• • objective, audience, offer, deliverables, channel specs, references, constraints, success metrics
• Identify ambiguity early and propose options/solutions to unblock execution
  
  
  

Creative direction & review

• Provide clear, prioritized, actionable feedback to designers and Art Directors
• Ensure consistency with brand standards and channel performance best practices
• Maintain quality across high-volume marketing output (web, email, ads, organic)
  
  
  

QA ownership & risk management

• Implement and maintain a tiered QA system:
• • Designer self-QA → AD review → ACD final review
• Reduce revision cycles by improving upstream direction and clarity
• Escalate only high-risk work per agreed rubric (VIP accounts, new campaigns, strategic landing pages)
  
  
  

Team leadership & development

• Mentor Art Directors to strengthen direction, critique, and decision-making
• Coach designers on craft and execution standards
• Run weekly creative calibration sessions to ensure consistent output and alignment
  
  
  

Creative operations & standardization

• Build and maintain templates and standards for:
• • briefs, feedback, file naming/versioning, handoffs, QA checklists
• Identify process improvements that reduce rework and increase throughput as the company scales
  
  
  

Success metrics (example KPIs)

• Reduced “directional miss” rate (major rework due to wrong concept/strategy/context)
• Improved first-pass approval rate (Designer → AD → ACD)
• Reduced average revision rounds per asset type
• Improved on-time delivery rate and reduced cycle time
• Fewer escalations to Head of Creative over time (without quality decline)
• Higher internal clarity scores on briefs and feedback
  
  
  

Qualifications

Required

• 7+ years professional design experience (agency or high-velocity marketing environment preferred)
• 2+ years in a lead role directing designers and/or Art Directors
• Strong portfolio across digital marketing:
• • paid social/performance ads, email campaigns, web/landing pages, organic social
• Excellent briefing and critique skills (can articulate “why” and give actionable guidance)
• Strong client communication skills, including the ability to push back constructively
• Ability to lead remotely with dependable ET overlap
  
  
  

Preferred (nice-to-have)

• CRO/landing page optimization familiarity
• Experience with performance testing/iteration cycles
• Experience leading distributed teams
• Experience partnering closely with Paid Media teams
  
  
  

Tools (edit to match your stack)

• Figma (required)
• Adobe Creative Suite (helpful)
• Slack + Google Workspace
• Project management tool (Asana/ClickUp/Monday/etc.)
• Loom or async review tools
  
  
  

Application instructions

Please submit:

• Resume or LinkedIn
• Portfolio link (required)
• Location and time zone
• A brief note describing:
• 1. the channels you’ve led most (ads/email/web/organic),
  2. an example of turning unclear client input into a clear brief.

This ACD role is a delivery-owning, client-facing pod lead position (briefing + direction + final QA), not a purely conceptual role.