Creative Strategy Director

DEPT®; Rotterdam; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

DEPT® is seeking a Creative Strategy Director in Amsterdam to lead at the intersection of creativity, culture, humanity, business, and technology. You’ll define true client challenges, craft compelling briefs, and drive growth opportunities while acting as a hybrid thinker beyond traditional labels.

You’ll elevate the team by sharing knowledge, mentoring peers, and delivering clear, impactful strategic directions in Dutch and English. A strong track record in strategic leadership is expected.

Qualifications

• Strategic voice and vision for strategy and POV on strategy.
• Inspires and nurtures creativity from briefing to delivery.
• Entrepreneurial mindset and proactive opportunity seeking.
• Distills complexity into simple, actionable insights.
• Loves research and audience immersion to inform work.
• Exceptional storytelling and presentation in public settings.
• Keeps pulse on culture, tech, social trends for action.

Responsibilities

• Define real client challenges by understanding business and culture.
• Craft strategies, briefs, and thought-starters that inspire directions.
• Drive growth opportunities and win new clients.
• Operate as a hybrid thinker across brand narrative and campaigns.
• Mentor others and raise performance within the team.
• Care for the work, craft, and humanity; present with confidence.

Skills

Fluent in Dutch

Fluent in English

Strategic thinking

Creative vision

Entrepreneurial mindset

Communication skills

Research passion

Cross-functional collaboration

Industry awareness

Job description

DEPT® is the Growth Invention Company, sitting at the intersection of marketing and technology. This role is part of our Creative & Media team based in Amsterdam. Our building is filled with a vibrant mix of talents, ranging from Creatives, Influencer Marketers, and a range of Strategists, to Account Managers, AI Experts, and Marketing Automation Consultants. Together, we blend imaginative storytelling, forward-facing creativity, and cutting-edge technology to create impactful creative work that drives growth for our clients like Netflix, Canva, Stokke, Foot Locker, Philips & Praxis.

Job purpose

Creative Strategy Directors at DEPT® are at the heart of the action, operating at the intersection of creativity, culture, humanity, business, and technology - helping create work that moves people and drives growth. We don’t have a proprietary framework or process. We don’t like to follow best practices because they’re based on the past. In a world of constant flux and endless opportunity, we believe strategy is crucial to imagine the path forward.

What you'll do

• Define the real challenge: Truly understand the client’s business and its cultural context to unpack the real problem.
• Craft the springboard: Consistently develop strategies, briefs, and thought-starters that excite, inspire and give clear direction.
• Growth invention: You will be a key player in winning new clients and proactively uncovering organic growth opportunities for existing ones.
• Think beyond boundaries: We don’t do one-dimensional strategy. You are a hybrid thinker who defies traditional labels - just as comfortable building a high-level brand narrative as you are mapping out a reactive social campaign or a tech-driven activation.
• Elevate the floor: Everyone has something to teach. And as a senior, you won’t just do the work; you will help others improve - within and beyond the team.
• That’s the core of it. Beyond that, we expect you to care about the work, the craft and humans, be comfortable in front of crowds and workshops, and be utterly yourself at all times.

What you'll bring

• Strategic voice: A senior strategist at DEPT® should have a sense of their strategic voice, their vision, and their POV on strategy. It’s what makes you unique, and your work special.
• Creative vision: A strategy isn’t brilliant until it leads to brilliant work. You thrive in inspiring, supporting, protecting, and nurturing creativity from before the briefing until after delivery.
• Entrepreneurial spirit: You don't wait for briefs to fall into your lap; you seek out new opportunities and can’t wait to make things happen.
• Embrace complexity: The world is increasingly complex and fragmented. Your superpower is processing, distilling, and demystifying that chaos into simple, actionable, and undeniable insights.
• Love research: You can set up, run, present, judge, and apply different types of research. You love playing the investigative journalist. You get under the skin of the audience, immerse yourself in the business and throw yourself into an industry - all for the betterment of the work.
• Commanding communication: Amazing ideas die in the dark without great communication. You know how to command a room, tell a story, disagree respectfully, debate fiercely and sell a vision with absolute clarity.
• Finger on the pulse: You know what’s going on in culture, in tech, on social and some other weird corners of the internet, and are able to turn that knowledge into action (or just great water cooler conversation).
• Driving effectiveness: The work doesn’t just need to be made, it needs to work, and strategy is responsible for ensuring it does. We need an effectiveness mindset, from start to finish - not just as an award-entry afterthought.
• Team Player: There’s a perception that the best strategists are mysterious lone-wolves who pontificate from ivory towers. That’s not the reality, at least not at DEPT®. Here getting to the best possible work is a team sport. Everyone has their roles and responsibilities, but we are all in it together. Both internally and with clients.
• Fluent in Dutch and English

We offer

• A flexible, hybrid working policy (2-3 days from the office, depending on location) and the opportunity to work from abroad for 13 weeks a year.
• 24 vacation days per year and the possibility to buy an unlimited number of extra vacation days.
• DEPT®/YOU Learning Menu and DEPT®/YOU Special Programs. Develop your skills with courses and programs tailored to your needs.
• Stay happy and healthy with a contribution to your health through the OpenUp platform, gym and wellness discounts, and healthy lunches at the office.
• Get a discount on your lease bike and ride in style. You can also enjoy hassle free-commutes with an NS Business Card.
• A reputation for doing good. DEPT® has been a Certified B Corp® since 2021, has been named a Great Place To Work since 2022 in the Netherlands and named ‘Agency of the Year’ at both The Lovies and The Webby Awards.
• Awesome clients. Whether big, small, local or global — at DEPT® you’ll get the opportunity to work with all of them. And we celebrate all of our successes together!

Why DEPT®?

We are a Growth Invention company built to help the world’s most ambitious brands grow faster. Operating at the intersection of technology and marketing, we create what is next by pioneering ideas, acting fast, and moving further because standing still just is not in our DNA.

We are drawn to people who stay curious, move with intent, and never stop inventing. Our culture runs on three values: better together, relentlessly curious, and get sh*t done. It is how we work, how we grow, and how we make things that matter.

At DEPT®, you will find the freedom to explore, the space to collaborate, and the trust to make a real impact for our clients, for each other, and for the world we are helping to build.