Creative Director at CRUX KC LLC – Kansas City, Missouri

Location: Kansas City, MO

Department: Creative

Reports To:

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.

We are seeking a strategic, hands-on Creative Director to lead the vision, quality, and

execution of creative work across the organization. This role is responsible for ensuring

that everything we produce is clear, compelling, and aligned to business outcomes. The

CD also ensures our creative is built for modern marketing across digital, social, video,

and emerging platforms. In this role, you'll help evolve how we approach creative in a

performance-driven, multi-channel environment.

This person sets the standard for creative at Crux. You will guide teams, shape ideas, and

stay close to the work to ensure it performs in the real world. You are both a thinker and a

builder, someone who can elevate concepts while ensuring disciplined execution.

This role requires a leader who brings clarity to ambiguity, pushes for simplicity over

noise, and holds a high bar for both craft and performance. You are a partner to strategy,

a mentor to creatives, and a trusted voice with clients.

Who You Are:

You are someone who:

• 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
• Thinks 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
• Collaborate 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

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