Description
Location: Kansas City, MO
Department: Creative
Position Type: Full-Time
So, what is Crux? It’s the nitty gritty, the heart of the matter. We know the traditional agency model isn’t a fit for everyone, so we take a different approach. Think of us as the “un-agency.” When you join Crux, you become part of an entrepreneurial team committed to elevating brands and amplifying missions. We’re trusting, accountable and unrelenting driven to help each other and our clients succeed.
Who You Are:
- Models Team Crux values with a thoughtful, accountable, and team-first approach
- Sets a high creative standard and holds teams to it with clarity and respect
- Think strategically about how creative drives business outcomes
- Communicates ideas clearly, both internally and with clients
- Gives direct, actionable feedback that improves the work
- Balances vision with execution and stays close enough to ensure quality
- Thrives in fast-moving environments and brings structure where needed
- Collaborates naturally across strategy, account, and channel teams
- Pushes for simplicity, clarity, and impact in everything you create
- Takes ownership of outcomes, not just output
- Stays ahead of trends across platforms, formats and technologies (AI, social, video, emerging media)
- Understands how creative behaves across channels and adapts ideas accordingly
- Brings a test-and-learn mindset, using performance data to evolve creative over time
- Thinks in systems (campaigns, content engines, modular creative), not just one-off deliverables
What You Will Do:
Creative Leadership and Direction
- Own and define the creative standard across all client work
- Lead concept development across campaigns, brand initiatives, and key deliverables
- Translate business objectives and strategy into clear creative direction
- Ensure consistency, quality, and clarity across all outputs
Execution and Output Quality
- Stay close to the work by reviewing, refining, and elevating creative deliverables
- Ensure work is not only strong creatively but drives measurable performance in the market
- Use performance data and insights to refine and improve creative over time
- Balance speed with quality in a fast-paced environment
- Push teams toward clear, simple, and impactful solutions
Team Leadership and Development
- Lead, mentor, and develop designers, writers, and creative contributors
- Provide consistent, actionable feedback to improve craft and performance
- Build a culture of ownership, accountability, and pride in the work
- Support hiring and scaling of the creative team as needed
Cross Functional Collaboration
- Partner with Strategy to ensure creative is grounded in insight and objectives
- Work closely with Client CMOs to align on expectations and direction
- Partner with channel teams to ensure creative is optimized, tested and iterated for performance
- Present work clearly and confidently to both internal teams and clients
- Partner closely with fractional CMOs to align creative with broader business and marketing priorities
Creative Operations and Process
- Establish efficient workflows for concepting, reviews, and approvals
- Ensure deadlines are met without compromising quality
- Identify gaps in process and implement solutions
- Contribute to building scalable creative systems as Crux continues to grow
Creative Innovation and Channel Excellence
- Lead development of platform-native creative across digital, social, video and emerging channels
- Ensure ideas translate effectively across paid, owned and earned environments
- Partner with channel teams to optimize creative for performance, testing and iteration
- Identify and integrate new tools, technologies and formats (including AI) to improve output and efficiency
Requirements
Milestone Goals
- Within 90 days: Evaluate and elevate existing creative standards, identifying opportunities to improve quality, consistency, and efficiency
- Within 6 months: Enhance creative workflows, feedback loops, and cross-functional collaboration to improve output quality and speed
- Within 6 to 9 months: Strengthen integration between creative, strategy, and channel teams to ensure work consistently performs
- Within 9 months: Develop and implement a scalable creative process that supports continued growth and efficiency
What You Bring:
- 10+ years of experience in creative roles with increasing leadership responsibility
- Proven experience leading and developing creative teams across multiple clients in fast-paced, high-accountability environments
- Experience leading creative across digital ecosystems (social, paid media, web, video, content)
- Strong understanding of platform-specific creative best practices (e.g., Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube)
- Familiarity with AI-powered creative tools and modern production workflows
- Ability to translate strategy into effective, high-performing creative work
- Strong portfolio demonstrating both conceptual thinking and execution
- High standards for quality with a bias toward action and ownership
- Confidence presenting and defending work with clients and senior stakeholders
- Previous experience in a marketing agency or a creative leadership role required