Executive Creative Director (Columbus)

The Executive Creative Director (ECD) serves as the creative visionary and strategic leader for design initiatives across the organization. This role requires a rare combination of retail experience expertise, design talent, and construction literacy. You will bridge the gap between creative vision and built reality - leading teams to deliver transformative retail environments that are both inspiring and executable.

The ECD is also responsible for installing a repeatable creative operating rhythm that improves outcomes: stronger briefs, faster approvals, less rework, healthier margins, and more confident clients. This is not a traditional creative director role - it is creative leadership with operational discipline.

Responsibilities:

• Design breathtaking retail experiences that stop customers in their tracks - and still make it through value engineering without losing the soul.
• Understand P&Ls, square‑foot economics, proforma logic, and retail operational requirements (flow, merchandising, labor, throughput).
• Speak fluently about millwork details, MEP coordination, building codes, documentation, and construction sequencing - you have been in the field and know what happens there.
• Translate between the languages of brand strategy, design excellence, and construction reality - and align stakeholders from CMO to CFO to GC.
• Build a creative operating system (not just great work): standards, critique, stage gates, and metrics that scale quality across teams.

Core competencies:

• Visionary creative thinking balanced with pragmatic business sense and construction realities.
• Ability to translate complex business challenges into elegant, executable design solutions.
• Fluency across creative, retail, and technical languages; strong cross‑functional collaboration.
• Strong leadership presence and executive communication skills; comfortable with merchants, strategists, CFOs, and contractors alike.
• Comfort with ambiguity and ability to thrive in a fast‑paced consulting environment.
• A systems mindset: builds repeatable standards and processes that improve outcomes beyond any single project.
• Problem‑solver who sees constraints as creative opportunities, not obstacles.
• Key responsibilities
• Creative vision, standards, and storytelling
• Creative operating system (COS) and delivery discipline
• Retail strategy, economics, and client outcomes
• Design development and construction integration
• Executive client leadership and stakeholder management
• Growth, thought leadership, and market differentiation
• Team leadership, talent development, and studio health

Qualifications:

• 12+ years of experience in retail design, branded environments, retail architecture, or experience design.
• 5+ years in senior creative leadership roles, with demonstrated ability to lead leaders (ACD/CD level) and multidisciplinary teams.
• Deep retail fluency: store planning, customer journey, merchandising strategies, retail operations, and the economics that drive decision‑making.
• Construction literacy: working knowledge of architectural systems, construction documentation, materials, codes, and field execution; experience collaborating through CA/field realities.
• Proven record of design excellence - a portfolio that shows strategic thinking, design innovation, and executed built work.
• Executive communication skills: confident presenting to C‑suite stakeholders across creative, operations, real‑estate, and finance.
• Business literacy: comfortable with metrics and partnering with finance/ops to improve utilization, margin, and delivery performance.
• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Architecture, Interior Design, or related field (or equivalent experience).

Preferred:

• Registered Architect or Interior Designer.
• Experience in consulting or professional services environments.
• Direct retail industry experience (client‑side or deeply embedded with retail clients).
• Knowledge of retail real‑estate development processes, fundamentals, and economics.
• Familiarity with emerging retail trends, omnichannel strategies, and experiential design.
• Master’s degree in Design, Architecture, Business, or related field.