Job Description:

The Freelance Executive Creative Director is a senior creative leader brought in to help shape high-impact, business-driving work for a major enterprise retail client. This role requires someone who can quickly earn trust, establish creative standards, and lead integrated teams through the realities of complex retail environments, from brand-building platforms to seasonal campaigns, commerce, shopper, digital, social, in-store, content, CRM, and production deliverables.

The Role…

As a Freelance Executive Creative Director, you will partner closely with agency creative leadership, strategy, account, production, media, and client teams to bring clarity, momentum, and creative ambition to a fast-moving enterprise retail account. You will be expected to plug in quickly, understand the client’s brand, category, customer journey, promotional rhythms, stakeholder landscape, and operational complexity, then translate that understanding into work that is distinctive, effective, and executable.

You are a seasoned creative leader with deep enterprise retail experience and a portfolio that shows both brand-level thinking and commercially grounded execution. You know how to lead creative work that has to perform across national campaigns, retail media, owned channels, loyalty ecosystems, product/category moments, merchandising, and store-level or shelf-connected touchpoints.

This is a freelance engagement for a leader who can operate with senior-level independence, guide teams in real time, shape presentations, strengthen the work before it reaches clients, and help the agency deliver with confidence in a high-volume, high-visibility retail environment.

We are seeking talent in the New York or Boston area only.

This role has a host of expectations, including, but not limited to the following:

Creative Excellence. You...

• Drive creative excellence across integrated retail work, ensuring ideas are strategically sharp, beautifully crafted, channel-right, and grounded in how retail customers actually discover, evaluate, buy, and engage with brands.

• Bring a strong understanding of enterprise retail ecosystems, including brand campaigns, promotional moments, loyalty, CRM, retail media, digital commerce, social, content, in-store, packaging-adjacent, and shopper touchpoints.

• Translate business objectives, customer insights, category dynamics, and merchandising priorities into creative ideas that can move both brand perception and commercial outcomes.

• Guide teams from brief through concept, presentation, refinement, production, and delivery while protecting the creative standard and helping the work stay executable within timing, budget, and operational realities.

Enterprise Retail Leadership. You...

• Have led creative for large, complex retail, commerce, consumer goods, pharmacy/health, mass, grocery, home, beauty, apparel, technology, or equivalent enterprise clients.

• Understand the pace, volume, stakeholder complexity, review cycles, regulatory or compliance considerations, and operational discipline required to support enterprise-scale retail work.

• Can elevate work that needs to serve multiple jobs at once: building the brand, driving traffic, supporting category and product priorities, converting customers, and staying consistent across a wide ecosystem of touchpoints.

• Know how to balance breakthrough thinking with practical retail realities, including promotional calendars, claims, legal review, partner approvals, modular toolkits, asset variation, and production efficiency.

Collaboration + Client Partnership. You...

• Build trust quickly with internal teams and senior client stakeholders, bringing calm, clarity, and creative authority to fast-moving discussions.

• Partner closely with account, strategy, media, production, project management, and client teams to pressure-test ideas, strengthen the work, and make sure deliverables ladder back to the strategy.

• Present creative work with confidence, business rationale, and a clear point of view, helping clients understand not only what the idea is, but why it will matter.

• Operate as a flexible senior partner who can lead the room, coach the team, sharpen a deck, solve a creative challenge, or step into client-facing conversations as needed.

Leading the Work + Team. You...

• Guide art directors, copywriters, designers, social/content creatives, production partners, and extended teams with clear direction, useful feedback, and high standards.

• Create momentum without creating friction, helping teams move quickly while staying aligned on priorities, expectations, and creative ambition.

• Know when to push, when to simplify, and when to help teams make smart tradeoffs so the work gets better and gets out the door.

• Model an inclusive, collaborative, ego-free leadership style that helps permanent and freelance team members do their best work.

Operationally, you...

• Can onboard quickly, ask the right questions, identify gaps, and establish a productive working rhythm with the agency and client team.

• Help shape creative reviews, internal checkpoints, client presentations, and production handoffs so the work advances with focus and quality.

• Manage multiple workstreams and timelines with strong judgment, escalating risks early and helping teams stay focused on the highest-value creative decisions.

• Bring freelance agility while operating with the ownership, discretion, and leadership presence expected of an executive creative partner.

Qualifications:

• 15+ years of creative experience, including senior creative leadership within an agency, retail, commerce, shopper, brand, or integrated marketing environment.

• Demonstrated experience leading enterprise retail or similarly complex, high-volume client work with multiple stakeholders, channels, and approval layers.

• Strong portfolio showing integrated creative leadership across brand, digital, social, content, retail media, shopper, CRM, experiential, OOH, film/video, and/or in-store touchpoints.

• Proven ability to lead teams, present to senior clients, shape creative strategy, and deliver work that is both distinctive and commercially effective.

• Comfort operating in a freelance capacity, including fast onboarding, flexible collaboration, strong communication, clear prioritization, and reliable delivery against tight timelines.

• Bachelor’s degree, portfolio school background, or equivalent professional experience in advertising, design, marketing, communications, or a related field.

The annual salary range for this position is $197,225-$263,062. Placement within the salary range is based on a variety of factors, including relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and other factors permitted by law.  Temporary employees are eligible for paid holidays in accordance with dentsu policy, as well as safe and sick time. This position is not eligible for any other benefits or other compensation. This assignment is expected to run through December 2026.

To begin the application process, please click on the “Apply” button at the top of this job posting. Applications will be accepted until September 16, 2026.

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