Senior Director, Creative Strategy, Global

The Independents • New York, NY

1d • Onsite

About The Position

Karla Otto is a globally recognized public relations and communications agency, part of THE INDEPENDENTS group, with offices in 15 key cities. The agency specializes in fashion, beauty, and lifestyle, representing prestigious names. The Senior Director of Creative Strategy, Global will work on centralized global accounts across international offices, leveraging all Karla Otto divisions (Insights, Creative Strategy, Experiences, Communications, Talent) for global clients primarily in fashion, lifestyle/hospitality, beauty, and FMCG. This role's primary focus is to own and drive global integrated pitches and strategic output, with accountability for creative excellence, client growth, and commercial success, particularly in Experiences. The Senior Director will also lead on creative strategy for larger multi-market clients (retainers and projects), developing the supporting team, ensuring quality of output, and building long-term team capability. The role requires managing and developing large global clients and a mixed client services team, building strong relationships internally and externally, acting as a senior strategic advisor, challenging briefs, influencing stakeholders, and identifying organic growth opportunities. Collaboration with agencies across The Independents Group is key for orchestrating cross-agency partnerships and delivering integrated solutions. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in integrated strategy and a track record of delivering complex, multi-market executions from concept to delivery, with recommendations driven by insights, research, data, trends, and performance analysis. The role demands a strategic and creative thinker embedded in culture, obsessed with the wider cultural/social landscape, and complementary verticals, demonstrating a strong point of view and the ability to translate cultural insight into commercially impactful ideas. They will be skilled in creating and leading impressive pitch decks and strategic work, presenting to senior client stakeholders, and overseeing project execution with strong management, negotiation, organizational, and analytical skills, ensuring meticulous attention to detail and a hands-on approach to delivery across global markets.

Requirements

• 8+ years in creative strategy — with a clear emphasis on strategic and development ideas
• Demonstrable experience developing brand narratives, positioning documents, and messaging frameworks
• 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
• Ability to manage and develop large global clients and a mixed client services team
• Ability to build strong relationships both with the client as well with internal teams and external partners
• Acting as a senior strategic advisor who can confidently challenge briefs, influence stakeholders, and identify opportunities for organic growth
• Deep and proven expertise in integrated strategy and a track record of delivering complex, multi-market executions from concept through to delivery
• Recommendations driven and backed by Insights - leveraging qualitative and quantitative research, data, trends, and performance analysis to inform strategy and measure impact
• Strategic and creative thinker who is embedded in culture and obsessed by the wider cultural/social landscape, and complementary verticals
• Strong point of view and the ability to translate cultural insight into commercially impactful ideas that drive brand relevance and engagement
• Skilled in creating and leading impressive pitch decks and strategic work in response to RFP’s and client briefs
• Enjoy packaging and selling in ideas, both verbally and visually including presenting to senior client stakeholders in high-pressure environments
• Extremely strong management, negotiation, organizational, and numerical / analytical skills, with meticulous attention to detail
• Hands-on approach to execution, ensuring strategic ideas are delivered to the highest standard across global markets

Nice To Haves

• In-house experience at a large-scale corporate environment is strongly preferred

Responsibilities

• 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.

Benefits

• 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

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 11-50 employees