Creative Director

Our Opportunity

GPJ is hiring a Creative Director to join our growing team! This role is hybrid, requiring you to report on-site to our GPJ office location a minimum of 2 days per week.

Your Role

The role of the Creative Director is to lead the team in creative ideation and innovative thinking, mentor and grow creative team members and to foster an open, collaborative and inclusive environment that inspires and delivers great work. I am motivated and tenacious and constantly push the creative limits of myself, our team and our clients to emotionally connect with audiences at every event.

You work directly with clients and internal teams to guide the development of strategic and creative ideas and solutions. Your focus is on overall creative strategy, customer journey and how our creative will deliver results for various events: trade shows, launch events, lifestyle events, sports and entertainment, conferences and PR opportunities.

In this role you will:

• Supervise account-based creative teams day-to-day to ensure their success
• Manage 1-4 direct reports and invest in their career path, growth and development
• Collaborate in NBD efforts, developing mind-blowing ideas and pitching to success
• Contribute to creative and agency culture, inspiring teams to do their best work
• Collaborate with creative leadership to create high-quality, strategic presentations that exceed client expectations through copywriting, sketches, renders, mock-ups, and presentations
• Excel at managing team workload and meeting tight deadlines
• Lead planning and strategy sessions resulting in clear creative briefs
• Lead project creative teams, overseeing work and ensuring execution is consistent and of the highest quality output
• Work closely with Creative leadership to establish agency best practices and standard ensuring our leadership within the industry
• Push the development of multiple concepts and solutions to meet client objectives, while also understanding impact to the larger business and GPJ
• Develops personal client relationships that inspires them and manages expectations
• Collaborate with IP, graphics production, fabrication and creative tech to set agency standards and solve design and budgetary challenges while maintaining design and brand integrity. Always find a way to make it work.

Your Skills

• You are a team player always willing to pitch in where needed
• Someone who has broad-based exposure to art, design, music, media and content and is always searching and learning, driven by a constant desire to expand your knowledge
• Provide creative team leadership and direction to fulfill GPJ vision of creative leadership in Experience Marketing
• Oversee account-based creative teams, while partnering closely with strategy, production, and accounts
• Deliver unique and authentic experiences for our clients
• Partner with clients and senior team members across departments to heighten a brand’s significance and performance
• Adeptly contribute to and oversees the concept, design and development of pitch presentations and concepts for new business and existing clients
• Lead the development of new ideas and creative design solutions across multiple brands and initiatives
• Partner with IP, account, GFX Production and Fabrication to set agency standards for work and define best practices for use across all accounts
• Maintain project budgets and tracks allocated hours to ensure profitability of the creative team – in partnership with Creative Project Managers and Account Teams
• An advocate who represents the agency with integrity and confidence with clients and at industry events

Your Competencies

Urgency - Decisive, responsive, and fast acting you achieve goals quickly both when working on your own and in collaboration with others. You demonstrate adaptability and agility when making on-the-spot decisions never sacrificing quality or work interactions. Cool under pressure. For the sake of time, you are able to eliminate unnecessary steps and use network resources to aid in project completion.

Communication   - At all levels, you easily convey and sell your ideas, and can articulate an idea with brevity during a brainstorm or client presentation. You express yourself clearly when collaborating and presenting, maintaining a positive image for GPJ both internally and externally. You understand the value of a well-turned phrase and a well-told story.

Creative Innovation - You are an idea-driven creative: someone who thinks about the big picture. Drive, develop, or support new and improved creative methods, products, procedures or technologies. Propels innovation by implementing the latest interactive technology in your storytelling. Devise new approaches to make improvements or solve problems. You are an innovative storyteller who is constantly challenging themselves to come up with ideas that are on strategy, transformative, and authentic to the client’s brand.

Flexible - Easily move on to new tasks with little to no notice. Put personal preferences aside and switch to a different strategy, form of communication or other objective without panicking. Maintain composure when deadlines move up and priorities shift. Keep an open mind.

Prioritization/Organization - Properly allocate time and resources so that jobs are completed within a defined timeframe; within budget and managing all resources (Full-time and freelance) as effectively as possible. Establishing a reasonable timeline for completion when no concrete date is given.

Your Experience

Experience & Education

• Minimum of four year degree in Design, Advertising, Theater or related creative discipline
• Minimum 10 years industry experience or related creative process experience combining strategy, content, message with creative deliverables.
• Event and Experience Design expertise desirable.
• Strong written, verbal and presentation skills required.
• Ability to lead, motivate and inspire the creative team, while keeping the creative process in alignment with GPJ business goals and objectives

Travel & Mobility

• Ability to travel 25%
• Ability to work irregular hours in addition to normal business hours, to include nights, weekends and holidays as needed

Your Impact

In your role, you will have influence and responsibility over:

• Molding the next generation of work and the creative team
• Defining client relationships and growing business through success and trust

Salary Range: $120k-$150k

Salary is dependent on a variety of factors including (but not limited to) experience, skills, and location.

Who We Are

GPJ is the world leader in experiential marketing. Our 29 global offices are filled with fearless people dreaming up ideas that are transforming industries and bringing the most respected brands to life in powerfully, exciting ways. We are a part of the Project Worldwide family. An independent, employee-owned global network of complementary, wholly owned agencies. 

You read that “employee-owned” part, right? You heard us correctly. You work hard, she works hard, we all work hard… we all succeed and reap the rewards. We have an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) – providing our employees with an ownership interest. We thought you would want to know that. In fact, there is a lot more you would want to know about us, like our FTO policy (no more “accruing” time off), our employer matching 401(k) plan (no vesting period), and our low employee contribution healthcare option. But we are getting ahead of ourselves here, let’s talk about this exciting opportunity first and we can fill you in on our perks & benefits later.

GPJ is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity), national origin, citizenship, disability, protected veteran status, or any other protected class. In addition to federal law requirements, GPJ complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.  GPJ expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on any protected class.