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

We’re looking for a senior creative leader who knows how to 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 preferred)

Experience Level: Senior / Director (8–12+ years)

About Us

Ladder is an adaptive growth agency that builds outsourced digital growth teams for some of the most ambitious companies in the world.

We partner with high-growth startups and global brands alike to solve complex growth problems — embedding elite strategy, performance marketing, creative, and technology into a single, integrated team model.

Our teams operate as an extension of our clients’ businesses, combining the strategic rigour of top consulting firms, the creative craft of leading advertising agencies, and the execution speed of modern performance teams. We work across multiple industries and stages, helping companies launch, scale, and sustain growth in fast-moving digital environments.

As we scale, we’re investing further in creative leadership to ensure the quality of our work consistently matches the ambition, sophistication, and scale of the brands we serve.

The Role

We’re hiring a Creative Director to elevate creative thinking, craft, and quality across Ladder’s client portfolio.

This role brings advertising-agency level conceptual leadership into a modern performance environment — shaping ideas that cut through feeds, earn attention, and drive measurable impact.

Creative thinking here starts with the feed, not the billboard.

This is not a production role.

It’s a creative ownership and standards-setting 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.

This is a senior, high-impact hire — and the first dedicated 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 Creative Director role.

What You’ll Do

• Set and uphold the creative bar across all Ladder client work
• Translate growth strategy into strong, distinctive creative platforms and ideas
• Lead conceptual thinking across performance, brand, and lifecycle creative
• Shape and sell ideas that perform — creatively and commercially
• Act as the senior creative voice in client presentations and workshops
• Guide designers and copywriters through clear, high-quality creative direction
• Improve how creative is briefed, reviewed, and iterated
• Balance brand storytelling with performance realities across Meta, Google, TikTok, and emerging channels
• Push creative innovation across native digital formats, including UGC, AI-driven video, and new ad surfaces

Who This Role Is For

This role is for a senior creative leader who:

• Has trained in top-tier advertising agencies (brand, digital, or integrated)
• Thinks in ideas, not just executions
• Brings exceptional taste and clear creative judgement
• Can confidently present and defend creative thinking with senior clients
• Understands how great creative performs in modern digital environments
• Uses data as fuel for ideas — not permission to have them
• Wants real influence over the quality of work, not just a title

Who This Role Is Not For

• Pure designers or copywriters
• Performance marketers looking to pivot into creative
• Junior team managers
• Anyone who needs data to approve ideas, rather than using it to spark them

Why Join Ladder

• You’ll shape how a modern growth agency shows up creatively
• You’ll work across ambitious, fast-growing brands at different stages
• You’ll collaborate closely with elite strategists, media specialists, and AI-powered systems
• You’ll help define what “world-class creative” means in a performance-first world

If you believe great creative is the ultimate growth lever — and you know how to make it work in performance environments — we’d love to hear from you.

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