Creative Strategy Director (Digital Performance & Brand) - Contract-to-Hire

We’re looking for a senior storyteller to own creative output at our digital growth agency and make big ideas work in feeds, not just decks.

• Employment Type: Contract-to-hire (initial contract with intent to convert to full-time)
• Location: Remote (UK / EU preferred)
• Experience Level: Senior / Director (8–12+ years)

About Ladder

Ladder builds outsourced digital growth teams for some of the most ambitious companies in the world.

We partner with high-growth startups and global brands to solve complex growth problems by embedding elite strategy, performance marketing, creative, and technology into a single integrated team. Our teams operate as an extension of our clients’ businesses — combining the strategic rigour of top consulting firms, the creative thinking of leading agencies, and the execution speed required to win in modern digital environments.

As our client mandates have grown more sophisticated, we’re investing in senior creative leadership to ensure our ideas, narratives, and creative thinking match the ambition, scale, and complexity of the brands we serve.

The Role

We’re hiring a Digital Creative Strategy Director to own ideas, messaging, and creative direction across Ladder’s client portfolio.

This role owns the overall creative output of the agency — setting the standard for idea quality, messaging, and creative direction across all client work.

This is a thinking- and communication-led role, not an art-direction-led one. You’ll be responsible for turning growth strategy into clear creative platforms, compelling narratives, and high-quality ideas that perform in digital channels.

Creative thinking here starts with the feed, the message, and the audience — not with brand campaigns or above-the-line executions.

This is not a production role. It’s a senior creative ownership role.

Contract-to-Hire Structure

This role will start as a contract engagement, with a clear path to full-time.

The contract will involve hands-on creative leadership across live client work — owning ideas, messaging, and creative direction in real performance environments.

This is a senior, high-impact hire and the first role of its kind at Ladder. We believe the best way to get this right is to work together in the real world before making a long-term commitment. If it’s a strong mutual fit, the intent is to transition into a full-time role.

What You’ll Do

• Own the creative standard and idea quality across all Ladder client work
• Translate growth strategy into clear creative platforms, narratives, and messaging frameworks
• Lead conceptual thinking across performance, brand, and lifecycle creative
• Be hands-on with ideas and words — shaping positioning, messaging, and ad concepts
• Shape and sell ideas that perform, creatively and commercially
• Act as the senior creative authority in client conversations and presentations
• Guide designers, copywriters and growth strategists with strong creative direction (you don’t just review work)
• Improve how creative is briefed, developed, and evaluated across the agency
• Balance storytelling with performance realities across Meta, Google, TikTok, and emerging channels
• Push creative thinking across native digital formats — not traditional campaigns

Who This Role is For

This role is for a senior creative strategist / ideas person who:

• Comes from a creative strategy, copywriting, or ideas-led background
• Is an exceptional conceptual thinker and communicator
• Thinks naturally in messaging, narratives, and ideas — not just visuals
• Has led creative thinking for digital-first brands or performance environments
• Can confidently present and defend ideas with senior clients
• Understands how creative ideas actually work in feeds, platforms, and algorithms
• Uses data as fuel for ideas, not permission to have them
• Wants genuine accountability for creative quality, not just influence

Who This Role Is Not For

• Art-direction-first or craft-led Creative Directors
• Traditional ATL / brand campaign specialists
• Designers looking to step into leadership
• Performance marketers rebranding themselves as creatives
• Anyone whose primary experience is big brand campaigns rather than digital performance

Why Join Ladder

• You’ll own and shape the creative product of a modern digital growth agency
• You’ll work on complex, high-impact growth problems — not just campaigns
• You’ll collaborate closely with elite strategists, media specialists, and AI-powered systems
• You’ll have real authority to raise standards and change how creative shows up
• You’ll help define what “world-class creative” means in a performance-first world

If you believe great creative ideas — clearly expressed and well executed — are the ultimate growth lever in digital environments, we’d love to hear from you.

Apply via LinkedIn with a portfolio or examples of work you’ve led.