Creative Director

Northern

24d•$90,000 - $120,000•Remote

About The Position

Northern, headquartered in London, Ontario, Canada, is an integrated digital solutions agency specializing in helping leading commercial and public service brands navigate digital change. By leveraging our expertise and deep understanding of our clients’ businesses, we collaborate to design, create, and enable tailored digital experiences that drive growth. Northern is positioned as a leader in the performance advertising industry as a Meta and Google Premier Partner awarded to only 3% of agency partners in Canada. Our campaigns with leading brands in North America have been recognized as best in class through the Google Premier Partner Awards, Search Engine Land Awards, and the Canadian Search Awards. Since our founding in 2015, Northern has grown into a team of 200+ digital experts, receiving multiple recognitions in employee engagement from Great Place to Work® Canada, including Best Workplaces™ for Inclusion, Women, Mental Health, Hybrid Work, and more. The Opportunity - Creative Director We are looking for a strategic Creative Director to lead Northern's Marketing Design Team and help shape the creative thinking behind the work we deliver for our clients.

Requirements

5+ years’ experience, as a Senior Designer or Art Director/Creative Director ideally in an agency environment
Experience with managing / leading a design team producing high volume performance creative
3+ years’ experience managing a team
A College diploma, University degree in a related field
Strong portfolio demonstrating conceptual thinking, creative strategy and high-quality design execution across digital marketing channels.
Experience developing creative for performance marketing environments, including paid social, digital advertising and iterative creative testing.
Strong client presentation and communication skills, with experience presenting and defending strategic creative recommendations.
Experience managing multiple accounts, campaigns and priorities within a fast-paced agency environment.
Proficiency with Adobe Creative Suite and Figma, with the ability to effectively direct and, when necessary, execute creative work.
Understanding of motion, video production, photography and web/UX principles.

Responsibilities

Lead creative strategy & Direction across key client accounts, translating business objectives, audience insights, channel strategy and brand positioning into compelling creative approaches.
Drive campaign ideation and concept development, establishing clear creative territories and guiding ideas from strategy through execution.
Lead performance creative strategy in partnership with Paid Media, using campaign performance and testing insights to develop hypotheses and continuously improve the work.
Facilitate creative discovery sessions, brainstorms and client workshops that turn complex business challenges into actionable creative opportunities.
Present and defend creative strategies to clients and stakeholders, clearly articulating the thinking behind recommendations.
Bring strong conceptual and copywriting instincts to shape messaging, campaign platforms and creative narratives.
Act as a senior creative partner to clients, contributing strategic perspective beyond individual deliverables.
Collaborate with Strategy, Paid Media, Email, UX, Development, Account and Project Management teams to create connected customer experiences.
Contribute creative thinking to new business opportunities, pitches and strategic client initiatives.
Translate performance insights and emerging trends into actionable recommendations.
Lead and mentor the Marketing Design Team, fostering strong creative thinking and professional growth.
Establish a high creative bar with clear, constructive feedback.
Manage team performance, development and career progression.
Partner with Project Management on resource planning, capacity and project prioritization.
Build creative processes that enable high-quality work in a high-volume environment.
Oversee creative QA to ensure deliverables meet strategic and brand standards.
Stay current on emerging creative trends across paid social, digital advertising, email, motion, photography, video and web.
Champion thoughtful AI adoption within the creative process to improve ideation, production and efficiency.
Evolve creative methodologies, tools and workflows as technology changes.
Provide creative direction for external production partners and hands-on art direction when needed.