Creative Director

Total Marketing Support Limited; City of Westminster; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

TMS Global, a leading subsidiary of DS Smith International Paper, seeks a Creative Director to define the vision and operating model for its Central Design Studio. This global role leads creative strategy for POS, retail activation and shopper marketing, guiding multidisciplinary teams and shaping the studio to meet high-value priorities.

You will translate consumer insights into strategic recommendations, drive innovation, and collaborate with senior stakeholders across FMCG clients.

Qualifications

• Highly experienced in senior creative leadership roles within retail marketing or POS environments.
• Deep expertise in consumer strategy and retail dynamics.
• Proven ability to lead multi-market programmes and cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Set the creative vision across global POS and retail programmes.
• Translate consumer insights into clear strategies with measurable impact.
• Lead development of creative work balancing customer engagement and brand objectives.
• Mentor and build high-performing multidisciplinary teams across regions.
• Define long-term vision and operating model for the Central Design Studio.
• Drive adoption of AI, automation and new creative technologies.

Skills

Senior creative leadership

Retail marketing

POS design

Brand activation

Stakeholder management

Sustainability

AI in creative

Job description

Creative Director - POS & Shopper Marketing

About the Role

We're looking for an exceptional Creative Director for a global role defining the vision, capability and operating model of our Central Design Studio. Combining creative leadership, organisational development and commercial acumen, this role will build the teams, technology and ways of working needed to deliver outstanding creative work across global priorities, including POS, retail activation and shopper marketing programmes. Working closely with business leaders and major global FMCG clients, you'll act as a strategic creative leader and trusted advisor. You'll shape the Studio's long-term direction, lead its Studio Management and Project Management functions, and deploy creative resources against the highest-value global priorities. You'll also translate complex business challenges into clear creative opportunities and compelling strategic recommendations for clients. This is a high-impact leadership opportunity to build future capability, organisational structure and talent plans; accelerate the adoption of AI, automation and emerging creative technologies; and create a culture that balances creative excellence, operational rigour and commercial performance. As an integral contributor to pitch responses, you'll help shape and articulate our company value proposition and broader strategy, ensuring our creative offer is distinctive, relevant and commercially compelling.

Key Responsibilities

• Setting the creative vision and standards across global POS and retail marketing programmes.
• Translating consumer behaviour, category dynamics and retail insights into clear creative strategies that create measurable impact.
• Challenging briefs to uncover the underlying audience need and conversion opportunity.
• Championing design excellence, innovation and continuous improvement across the creative function.
• Leading creative development across POS, retail activation, merchandising and branded environments.
• Ensuring solutions balance customer engagement, brand objectives, sustainability, manufacturability and commercial performance.
• Acting as a trusted strategic advisor to global brand, marketing and senior client stakeholders.
• Presenting and defending creative recommendations through compelling storytelling and strategic rationale.
• Building, mentoring and inspiring high-performing multidisciplinary creative teams.
• Defining the long-term vision, capability roadmap and operating model for the Central Design Studio.
• Driving the adoption of AI, automation and emerging creative technologies to enhance innovation, quality and efficiency.
• Establishing performance measures across delivery excellence, talent development, utilisation and client satisfaction.

About You

You're a retail-focused creative leader with the ability to move seamlessly between strategy, creative direction, execution and senior stakeholder engagement. You understand that exceptional retail design is about solving both customer and business challenges through creativity and insight.

We're looking for:

• Highly experienced in senior creative leadership roles within retail marketing, retail design, brand activation or POS environments.
• Deep expertise in consumer strategy and behaviour, path-to-purchase and retail environments.
• Experience developing POS and retail activation solutions for major FMCG or consumer brands across global or multi-market programmes.
• A strong portfolio showcasing strategic thinking, creative leadership and design excellence.
• Proven success leading and developing multidisciplinary creative teams.
• Strong stakeholder management skills with the confidence to influence and challenge senior client stakeholders.
• Commercial understanding of retail production, implementation and activation.
• Knowledge of sustainability, emerging retail technologies and AI-enabled creative development.
• Experience working across multicultural teams and international markets.

About Us

TMS Global is a leading subsidiary of DS Smith International Paper, a renowned global packaging services company.

Operating across 97 global markets, TMS Global specializes in retail display, print, and packaging outsourcing. Our TMS family consists of just over 300 people who are spread internationally across Europe, AMEA and the Americas.

"To fulfil our purpose of redefining packaging for a changing world, we aim to build a diverse, motivated and engaged workforce. Our goal is to create a culture of inclusion where everyone is treated fairly, differences are valued and everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. Our people come from diverse backgrounds, bring different perspectives, ideas and experiences to generate unique solutions focused on present and future sustainability challenges. We welcome all candidates to apply, even those not meeting all criteria."

#LI-CP

We are DS Smith, together with International Paper, we are a global leader in sustainable packaging solutions and other fibre-based products.We believe a better, more sustainable tomorrow is possible with the right people, who challenge and support one another to enact positive change. We employ more than 60,000 colleagues in North America and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), who are experts in innovation,manufacturing, design, sales, sustainability, supply chain, and much more. Together with our customers, we make the world safer and more productive, one sustainable packaging solution at a time. Become part of a world-leading organisation and do your best work with us! As the journey continues of bringing together the strengths of both organisations, during your candidate experience you may engage with our colleagues from International Paper! You could visit an International Paper or DS Smith site or office.