Fractional Creative Director

The Baby Academy is hiring a commercially minded Fractional Creative Director to set creative direction and elevate performance-aware creative across channels in a lean, AI-forward model. Responsibilities Own development of high-level creative concepts across paid media, social, web, email, brand campaigns, partnerships , and other customer touchpoints Translate business goals, customer insights, cultural observations , and brand strategy into distinctive creative ideas Define creative territories, campaign concepts, visual approaches, and testing hypotheses that the Production Designer can extend efficiently Continuously uncover new creative opportunities instead of relying only on assigned briefs or predetermined requests Help set the standard for what “great creative” looks like and raise the quality bar across the organization Apply evolving brand strategy and visual identity to ensure work is distinctive, consistent , and adapted to each channel and objective Partner with growth, paid media , and agency teams to understand creative performance patterns in what wins and what underperforms Turn performance insights into new creative hypotheses, structured iterations, and repeatable tests Operate with a dual mindset: brand-building and commercial discipline , balancing emotional resonance, clarity, differentiation, and measurable results Stay close to customer feedback, social comments, organic content performance, competitive activity, and emerging cultural signals Contribute to a repeatable creative testing approach that increases organizational learning speed Provide clear, high-quality creative direction to the Production Designer and creative partners, while staying hands-on to develop, build, refine, or prototype personally when needed Convert concepts into actionable briefs, references, design systems, and feedback to enable fast, high-quality execution Review and refine creative output to ensure a consistently high standard before launch Create an effective division of labor so senior time stays focused on ideas, judgment, direction, and quality, while production handles adaptation, versioning, resizing, and executional volume Guide creative across Meta, display, email, presentations, landing pages, web assets, social content , partner materials, and future formats Partner with marketing leadership plus audience growth, lifecycle, content, clinical , and external agency teams to align creative with broader strategy Use AI across ideation, concept exploration, visual development, production, iteration, and workflow design Evaluate new AI tools and creative technologies that can materially improve quality, speed, or range Develop workflows that let a lean internal team produce work that would otherwise require more time, budget, or external production Proactively introduce the team to new capabilities and methods rather than waiting for the organization to prescribe them Use AI to raise the ceiling of creative quality, not only to automate lower-value tasks or replicate the same work Bring the evolving brand strategy and visual identity to life across day-to-day marketing execution Ensure brand coherence across paid media, social, email, website, landing pages, presentations, partnerships, and other customer-facing experiences Protect consistency while avoiding guidelines that become creatively restrictive or repetitive Identify where customer-facing experiences can be improved visually and recommend solutions Collaborate with external brand/creative agencies when appropriate, translating strategic brand work into practical internal systems and execution Requirements Significant experience operating at Creative Director level , including owning creative direction, leading major concepts and campaigns, and raising creative standards 8+ years of progressive creative experience, ideally including senior Creative Director or equivalent leadership in an agency or consumer brand environment A portfolio showing ownership of creative ideas, campaigns, brand systems , and direction of other creative talent (not just individual execution) Strong understanding of digital and performance creative , including channel adaptation for paid social, web, email, display, and other touchpoints A performance-creative mindset: excitement about learning what performs, why it performs, and how that shapes the next idea or test Fluency with AI-enabled creative tools and a track record of using technology to improve quality, capability, or efficiency Experience directing designers, production resources, freelancers, agencies, or other creative partners, with confidence to remain hands-on when needed Excellent taste, communication, judgment, feedback, and cross-functional collaboration skills Ability to operate effectively in a fractional model by prioritizing high-leverage creative work, moving quickly, and enabling clarity for executional resources Role Details Job type: Part time, 20 hours/week Monthly retainer: $6,000-$7,000 (depending on experience) Location: 330 N Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL 60611, United States (hybrid) Office expectation: minimum 1 day/week , working alongside the CEO, VP of Marketing, and Senior Leadership Team Reports to: VP, Marketing Creative Support Full-time Production Designer supporting high-volume execution, adaptation, versioning, and production Technologies AI Meta What Success Looks Like Material improvement in overall quality, originality, and distinctiveness across paid media, web, email, social, campaigns, and brand experiences Creative function generates new ideas and testing hypotheses rather than operating reactively as production-only Improved creative performance tied to stronger connection between commercial results, customer insight, and what the team builds next Production Designer receives clear direction to efficiently turn strong concepts into high-volume, polished, channel-appropriate execution Brand becomes increasingly consistent and recognizable while staying fresh, relevant, and channel-native AI meaningfully expands speed and quality, enabling work that previously required more time, budget, or external support Marketing leadership experiences creative as proactive, commercially engaged, highly collaborative , and consistently raising the standard Application Question Have you led creative for a consumer-facing brand, including setting creative direction and directing designers, freelancers, agencies, or other creative resources? Additional Info Website: (current website, pre-rebrand) #J-18808-Ljbffr The Baby Academy