Studio Director: Creative Vision & Production Lead

Salt; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 300,000 - 600,000; Full time

Job summary

Salt in Abu Dhabi is building an in-house creative agency and seeks a senior Creative Director to lead the studio from the ground up. You will shape the creative vision and establish production capabilities across brands and campaigns.

The role requires turning briefs into production-ready ideas, building processes, and managing a high-performing team of creatives and production partners to deliver high-quality work at scale.

Qualifications

• Significant experience in a senior Creative Director, Executive Creative Director, Studio Director, Creative Lead or similar leadership position.
• Experience working within an integrated creative agency, production studio, in-house creative team or similar environment.
• Strong understanding of production across content, film, photography, digital, social and integrated campaigns.
• Experience building, managing or scaling a creative studio or multidisciplinary team.
• Strong understanding of creative operations, workflows, budgets, timelines and production management.
• Commercially minded with the ability to balance creativity with business objectives.
• Excellent stakeholder management and presentation skills.
• Comfortable operating at both strategic and hands-on levels.
• Experience working across multiple brands, business units or complex organisations would be highly advantageous.
• Experience building an in-house agency or creative function from the ground up would be a strong advantage.

Responsibilities

• Set the overall creative vision, standards and direction for the in-house agency.
• Lead the development of creative concepts and campaigns across brand, digital, social, content and integrated communications.
• Challenge and elevate creative thinking, ensuring work is innovative, relevant and commercially effective.
• Translate business and marketing objectives into strong creative strategies and ideas.
• Act as the senior creative voice across the organisation, confidently presenting ideas and creative recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Build a culture of creativity, collaboration and high-quality execution.
• Take ownership of the day-to-day creative studio and production function.
• Build effective workflows, processes and production standards for the new in-house agency.
• Oversee the delivery of creative projects from briefing and concept development through to final production.
• Ensure projects are delivered on time, on budget and to the required creative standard.
• Manage a mix of internal creative resources, freelancers, production partners and external suppliers where required.
• Identify opportunities to bring more capabilities in-house and reduce reliance on external agencies and production partners.
• Oversee production across a variety of formats, including film, photography, social content, digital, events, campaigns and branded content.
• Ensure the studio has the right talent, tools, suppliers and production capabilities to support the wider business.
• Build, lead and develop a high-performing creative and studio team.
• Define the structure, capabilities and future hiring requirements of the creative function.
• Mentor Creative, Design, Content, Production and other specialist talent.
• Establish clear ways of working between creative, marketing, communications and wider business teams.
• Create an environment that encourages collaboration between different creative disciplines.

Job description

Salt in Abu Dhabi is building an in-house creative agency and seeks a senior Creative Director to lead the studio from the ground up. You will shape the creative vision and establish production capabilities across brands and campaigns.

The role requires turning briefs into production-ready ideas, building processes, and managing a high-performing team of creatives and production partners to deliver high-quality work at scale.