Director of Creative Strategy / Head of Creative Studio

Lantern is looking for a Director of Creative Strategy to lead Lantern’s Ad Creative Studio, based in NYC. You’ll inherit a team of expert creative strategists and motion graphic designers who develop Lantern’s paid social and CTV performance creative, the engine that drives growth for some of the most exciting DTC health and wellness brands in the country. This is a leadership role: you will own the strategy, the people, and the process behind a team of designers and strategists who service multiple clients at once.

You’ll be accountable for everything that makes great ad creative happen at scale – from creative strategy and briefing through design execution and performance measurement – while also owning the team itself: hiring, managing, and developing designers and strategists. As part of this role, you’ll also build out and refine our creator sourcing and hiring processes to drive strong UGC results for clients, as well as occasionally lead in-person video shoots to collect raw video for CTV campaigns and specific paid social formats (i.e. product / lifestyle statics and/or customer interview formats) You’ll also lead the charge on AI in ad design, making sure Lantern stays at the cutting edge of AI-powered creative production. This role is focused on paid social and CTV creative, although you’ll work closely with other teams like paid media and CRO to keep creative plans integrated with our clients’ full-funnel strategies.

This role reports to Lantern's Senior Partner & COO.

Responsibilities

• Team Leadership: Build, manage, and inspire a team of ad designers and creative strategists who service multiple health and wellness clients, fostering a high-performance, high-output creative culture.
• Hiring & People Management: Own the full hiring and management process for the creative team — recruiting, onboarding, performance management, and career development for designers and strategists as the team grows.
• Creator Sourcing & Management: Build and manage the sourcing and hiring process for UGC creators, ensuring a strong bench of creators who consistently deliver high-performing content for clients.
• Build out a small production studio: Occasionally coordinate live video shoots in and around our NYC based office, to collect high quality raw video assets for use in paid social or CTV campaigns.
• Operating Model: Design and run the processes and workflows that let the team consistently produce a high volume of high-performing, on-brief, on-brand ad creative across clients without sacrificing quality.
• Creative Strategy: Set the paid social creative strategy for each client in partnership with strategists and media teams, and guide the team on when to iterate on a winning concept versus test something new to hit performance goals.
• Creative Briefing & Execution: Oversee the briefing process and the execution of paid social ad creative – UGC, static, animation, and video – so that assets dramatize each brand's point of difference and drive conversion.
• AI Innovation: Uplevel Lantern's approach to AI in ad design, evaluating new tools and workflows and rolling out best practices so the agency stays at the cutting edge of AI-powered creative for clients.
• Performance Measurement: Own the creative measurement framework, KPIs, and reporting process the team uses to track and communicate the impact of creative on client performance.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with Lantern's CRO, paid media, and other channel teams to keep ad creative aligned with broader account strategy and coordinated creative plans.
• Client & Stakeholder Management: Serve as a senior creative point of contact for high value clients, presenting creative strategy, performance insights, and recommendations with confidence.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in creative strategy for performance or paid social marketing, ideally with a mix of agency and in-house experience.
• 3+ years of experience directly managing and growing a team of designers and/or creative strategists.
• Proven track record leading performance-driven creative (UGC, static, video, animation) that achieves measurable results on Meta, TikTok, and other paid social platforms.
• Experience sourcing, hiring, and managing UGC creators or influencer talent is a strong plus.
• Hands-on knowledge of AI design tools, with a track record of using them to increase creative velocity and quality.
• Strong analytical mindset, comfortable using performance data to inform creative strategy and decisions.
• Exceptional project management skills, with the ability to run multiple clients and workstreams simultaneously.
• Excellent communication skills, with experience presenting creative strategy and performance insights to clients and senior stakeholders.
• Experience in DTC health, wellness, or consumer brands, or agency experience across multiple clients, is a strong plus.
• NYC or greater NYC located, with willingness to come into our NYC office 2-3 times per week.

Who you are

• A creative leader who cares as much about team output and process as personal craft.
• A strong people manager who can hire, coach, and grow designers, strategists, and creators.
• Deeply curious about what makes paid social creative perform – you think in hypotheses, not just aesthetics.
• Operationally minded: you can build a system that produces great creative at scale across many clients at once.
• An early adopter of AI tools who wants to push the whole agency's creative capability forward.
• Collaborative and low-ego: you work well with strategists, media buyers, account managers, and clients at every level.
• Genuinely excited about health, wellness, and the brands you're helping grow.

About Lantern

Lantern is a full-stack growth agency for the country’s most innovative DTC health startups. Our mission is to bend the risk curve for innovative early & growth-stage DTC health companies, helping our clients deliver life-changing care to more Americans. We are a place for ambitious marketers to hone their craft and work on interesting projects with exceptional colleagues, while growing into the world’s best full-stack DTC health marketers.

Lantern is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Lantern does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.

Applications outside of the US will not be considered