Senior Director, Creative Strategy, Global

Karla Otto is a globally recognized public relations and communications agency, founded in 1982, with offices in 15 key cities across the UK, EMEA, US, and Asia. With a strong presence in fashion capitals such as Milan, London, Paris, and New York, the agency has built a reputation for representing some of the most prestigious names in fashion, beauty, and lifestyle.

In 2017, Karla Otto merged with K2 to form THE INDEPENDENTS, a global marketing, design, and communications group. This collective brings together industry leaders who share a commitment to innovation, excellence, and thoughtful collaboration across the luxury and lifestyle sectors.

At Karla Otto, our team of expert strategists, designers, planners and publicists are dedicated to delivering exceptional results and establishing long-term partnerships with our clients. We are passionate about the world of fashion, beauty, and luxury, with everyone bringing their unique expertise and insights to the table. We are driven by a shared commitment to excellence and a deep understanding of the ever-evolving industry landscape.

To help support our future growth as an agency, we are looking for a to join our team based in our New York Offices.

The Senior Director of Creative Strategy, Global will work on centralized global accounts across international offices to leverage all Karla Otto divisions (Insights / Creative Strategy / Experiences / Communications / Talent ) for global clients primarily in fashion, lifestyle / hospitality, beauty and FMCG. The primary focus of this role will be to own and drive global integrated pitches and strategic output, with accountability for creative excellence, client growth, and commercial success (with a strong focus on Experiences) across key client work as well as to lead on creative strategy for larger multi-market clients (both retainers and projects) leading and developing the supporting team, ensuring quality of output, and building long-term team capability.

This role requires the ability to manage and develop large global clients and a mixed client services team, building strong relationships both with the client as well with internal teams and external partners, acting as a senior strategic advisor who can confidently challenge briefs, influence stakeholders, and identify opportunities for organic growth. There is a strong focus on collaborating with agencies across The Independents Group, playing a key role in orchestrating cross-agency partnerships to deliver integrated, best-in-class solutions. The ideal candidate will have worked with a cross range of brands/ client types with a deep and proven expertise in integrated strategy and a track record of delivering complex, multi-market executions from concept through to delivery. Recommendations will be driven and backed by Insights - leveraging qualitative and quantitative research, data, trends, and performance analysis to inform strategy and measure impact.

The right candidate will be both a strategic and creative thinker who is embedded in culture and obsessed by the wider cultural/social landscape, and complementary verticals. They will demonstrate a strong point of view and the ability to translate cultural insight into commercially impactful ideas that drive brand relevance and engagement. They will never be short on ideas to drive connection and conversation for brands and will enjoy leading projects and working collaboratively across various teams and functions to deliver brilliant work that generates value for both clients and the agency.

They will be skilled in creating and leading impressive pitch decks and strategic work in response to RFP’s and client briefs and enjoy packaging and selling in their ideas, both verbally and visually including presenting to senior client stakeholders in high-pressure environments. Managing the relevant teams internally and externally, they will also be required to oversee and drive the execution of these projects and their deliverables and therefore have extremely strong management, negotiation, organizational, and numerical / analytical skills, with meticulous attention to detail. The role requires a hands-on approach to execution, ensuring strategic ideas are delivered to the highest standard across global markets.

Key Responsibilities

Client Focused:

• Partner with the Chief Business Officer and Senior Vice President to lead global pitches, shape responses to RFPs, and drive new business conversion.

• Build and maintain senior client relationships, acting as a trusted advisor to drive long-term partnerships and repeat business.

• Drive new business and organic growth across existing clients by identifying strategic and creative opportunities that expand scope and revenue.

• Demonstrate exceptional ability to articulate strategic and creative concepts across visual, written, and verbal formats.

• Lead cross-functional teams and partners to ideate, develop, and deliver integrated creative ideas and experiences, ensuring executional excellence, alignment to brand objectives, and delivery against growth and profitability targets.

• Partner closely with Insights to ensure all strategies and creative outputs are grounded in data, research, and cultural intelligence.

• Drive innovative thinking in collaboration with Karla Otto’s talent division, developing impactful long-term partnerships and talent strategies for both clients and the agency.

• Oversee the development of accurate project budgets and ensure financial performance is actively managed against targets.

• Define and optimise working processes and workflows tailored to client needs, overseeing Project Managers to ensure efficient and effective delivery.

• Manage the reporting process to demonstrate the value of programs and their effectiveness to maximize results and provide key future learnings to continually optimize EMV, impressions etc.

• Lead cross-functional collaboration across internal and external teams, proactively managing resourcing, workflow, and issue resolution in fast-paced environments.

• Maintain strong financial and operational oversight, including budget tracking, forecasting, and collaboration with finance teams to ensure commercial rigor.

• Development and management of more junior team members who they directly manage but also collaborate with across clients to ensure team is constantly learning and evolving for productivity, growth to scale department.

Internal Focus:

• Partner the Chief Business Officer and Senior Vice President with work around agency positioning and vision, through working to evolve our services and how we package ourselves as an agency.

• Drive new business acquisition through the development of target pipelines, leading pitch strategy, and overseeing the creation of high-impact proposals, scopes, and budgets.

• Lead the global creative strategy team day-to-day, setting direction, elevating output quality, and ensuring consistent excellence across all client and project work.

• Client budget management: manage internal team efficiency and productivity to achieve desired profit margin and ensure continual growth of the department.

• Stay ahead of cultural and industry trends, sharing insights and setting direction to ensure the team continues to evolve and deliver at a senior level.

Key Attributes

• 8+ years in creative strategy — with a clear emphasis on strategic and development ideas

• Demonstrable experience developing brand narratives, positioning documents, and messaging frameworks

• In-house experience at a large-scale corporate environment is strongly preferred

• Experience working with senior executives or public-facing leaders

• Deep knowledge of the luxury and/or fashion media landscape

• Strong new business instincts - comfortable leading or significantly contributing to pitches and strategic proposals

• A genuine point of view on where media is heading and the ability to articulate it clearly

• Intellectually curious, widely read, and able to bring cultural reference and research into client work

• Restless with convention and excited by formats, platforms, and collaborators that sit outside the traditional PR model

• Exceptional written communication skills - precise, considered, and adapted to audience

• Creative and strategic thinker with strong presentation skills

• Proven experience in a fast-paced environment with excellent prioritization and time management

What We Offer

• Salary: $140k-$150k

• Medical, Dental, and Vision plans

• 401K Employer Match program

• Commuter Benefits

• Paid Time Off including Vacation Days, Personal Days, Sick Days, and additional Comp Days

• Company-wide closure last week of the year

• 10 Federal Holidays Observed

At Karla Otto, we are always looking for personalities with positive charisma who are enthusiastic, self-motivated, and have a keen sense of aesthetics.

Karla Otto embraces and celebrates diversity, inclusivity, and equal opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. Karla Otto provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.

We aspire to have a diverse and inclusive workplace and strongly encourage qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join our team!