Senior Director, Creative Strategy – Global

The Independents

Senior Director, Creative Strategy leading global integrated pitches and strategic output for Karla Otto. Collaborating with cross-functional teams to achieve creative excellence and client growth.

Posted 4/27/2026full-timeNew York City • New York • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $140,000 - $150,000 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Partner with the Chief Business Officer and Senior Vice President to lead global pitches, shape responses to RFPs, and drive new business conversion.
Build and maintain senior client relationships, acting as a trusted advisor to drive long-term partnerships and repeat business.
Drive new business and organic growth across existing clients by identifying strategic and creative opportunities that expand scope and revenue.
Demonstrate exceptional ability to articulate strategic and creative concepts across visual, written, and verbal formats.
Lead cross-functional teams and partners to ideate, develop, and deliver integrated creative ideas and experiences, ensuring executional excellence, alignment to brand objectives, and delivery against growth and profitability targets.
Partner closely with Insights to ensure all strategies and creative outputs are grounded in data, research, and cultural intelligence.
Drive innovative thinking in collaboration with Karla Otto’s talent division, developing impactful long-term partnerships and talent strategies for both clients and the agency.
Oversee the development of accurate project budgets and ensure financial performance is actively managed against targets.
Define and optimise working processes and workflows tailored to client needs, overseeing Project Managers to ensure efficient and effective delivery.
Manage the reporting process to demonstrate the value of programs and their effectiveness to maximize results and provide key future learnings to continually optimize EMV, impressions etc.
Lead cross-functional collaboration across internal and external teams, proactively managing resourcing, workflow, and issue resolution in fast-paced environments.
Maintain strong financial and operational oversight, including budget tracking, forecasting, and collaboration with finance teams to ensure commercial rigor.
Development and management of more junior team members who they directly manage but also collaborate with across clients to ensure team is constantly learning and evolving for productivity, growth to scale department.
Partner the Chief Business Officer and Senior Vice President with work around agency positioning and vision, through working to evolve our services and how we package ourselves as an agency.
Drive new business acquisition through the development of target pipelines, leading pitch strategy, and overseeing the creation of high-impact proposals, scopes, and budgets.
Lead the global creative strategy team day-to-day, setting direction, elevating output quality, and ensuring consistent excellence across all client and project work.
Client budget management: manage internal team efficiency and productivity to achieve desired profit margin and ensure continual growth of the department.
Stay ahead of cultural and industry trends, sharing insights and setting direction to ensure the team continues to evolve and deliver at a senior level.

Requirements

What you’ll need

8+ years in creative strategy — with a clear emphasis on strategic and development ideas
Demonstrable experience developing brand narratives, positioning documents, and messaging frameworks
In-house experience at a large-scale corporate environment is strongly preferred
Experience working with senior executives or public-facing leaders
Deep knowledge of the luxury and/or fashion media landscape
Strong new business instincts - comfortable leading or significantly contributing to pitches and strategic proposals
A genuine point of view on where media is heading and the ability to articulate it clearly
Intellectually curious, widely read, and able to bring cultural reference and research into client work
Restless with convention and excited by formats, platforms, and collaborators that sit outside the traditional PR model
Exceptional written communication skills - precise, considered, and adapted to audience
Creative and strategic thinker with strong presentation skills
Proven experience in a fast-paced environment with excellent prioritization and time management.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Medical, Dental, and Vision plans
401K Employer Match program
Commuter Benefits
Paid Time Off including Vacation Days, Personal Days, Sick Days, and additional Comp Days
Company-wide closure last week of the year
10 Federal Holidays Observed

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

creative strategybrand narrativespositioning documentsmessaging frameworksbudget managementproject managementdata analysisfinancial performance trackingRFP responsesnew business acquisition

Soft Skills

client relationship managementstrategic thinkingcreative thinkingwritten communicationpresentation skillsteam leadershipcollaborationprioritizationtime managementintellectual curiosity