Associate Creative Director

Adelphi Group; Illinois; On-site; USD 117,000 - 143,000; Full time

Job summary

Golin Ketchum is seeking an Associate Creative Director to join our team. This role offers autonomy, client facetime, and opportunities to elevate presentation, pitching and production skills while shaping ideas for high-profile brands.

You’ll mentor juniors, direct brainstorms, and collaborate with strategists and account partners to ensure the strongest thinking is brought to life. The work spans QSR, an airline, and a mix of consumer initiatives.

Qualifications

• An ACD should be highly curious and culturally savvy, loves collaboration on first-ever headline-driving ideas.
• Ideal candidate has 5–7 years of experience selling and executing earned-first ideas for big clients, and can clearly convey the vision for the work and its relevance to the consumer.
• A portfolio that proves it.

Responsibilities

• Take ownership with autonomy, face-to-face with clients, and lead presentation, pitching and production development.
• Work on diverse brands including QSR, airline, and financial products, translating rough concepts into compelling finished work.
• Direct brainstorms, mentor juniors, and guide the team to identify and elevate strongest thinking.
• Collaborate with strategists and account partners to deliver integrated ideas that resonate with audiences.
• Provide feedback and foster a collaborative, high-performance environment.

Skills

Autonomy

Leadership

Mentoring juniors

Pitching

Client collaboration

Job description

Agency:

Golin Ketchum

Job Function:

Creative

Job Subfunction:

Creative Direction

Job Description:

Associate Creative Director

Golin Ketchum is looking for an ACD to join our team!

Golin Ketchum is the most awarded public relations agency of the decade. We create change that matters for our clients and our people. The kind of change that earns attention and shapes culture to build business.

Formed in 2026 from the merger of two iconic PR agencies, Golin Ketchum combines fearless creative and strategic excellence, fueled by Omnicom's industry-leading data and AI solutions, to uncover powerful insights and execute work that builds and protects the world’s greatest companies.

With specialized expertise across consumer and brands, corporate affairs, healthcare, technology, and food, agriculture and nutrition, we deliver integrated, high-impact communications services at scale.

At Golin Ketchum, culture matters. We are fiercely ambitious yet fundamentally kind and collaborate obsessively with the best clients in the world.

Want to create change that matters with us? Here are the details:

What You’ll Do:

• ACD's at Golin Ketchum have a lot of autonomy, facetime with clients, ability to flex and grow their presentation, leadership, pitching and production skills.
• This particular role will be predominantly working on THE QSR brand, an airline, and everything from candy to credit cards as well.
• You'll take rough concepts and make them better. You'll know what's interesting. What's getting in the way and what it could become.
• You'll build with other creatives, strategists, and account partners. Giving good feedback. Accepting good feedback. You will make the people around you better.
• You'll direct brainstorms. You'll mentor juniors. You'll help the team see where the strongest thinking is.

What You Have:

• A successful ACD at Golin Ketchum is a highly curious, culturally savvy individual who loves to collaborate on first-ever, headline-driving ideas.
• An ideal candidate has 5-7 years of experience selling and executing earned first ideas for big, meaty clients. Can collaborate with other disciplines and clearly convey the vision for their work, why it is right for the brand, and how it is relevant to the consumer.
• You have a portfolio that proves it.

Golin Ketchum is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Golin Ketchum recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.

$130,000

Omnicom's policy requires employees to work in the office for a minimum of three days a week, unless additional in-office days are directed by their agency or manager. Our objective is to increase this requirement over time, and many of our agencies as well as Omnicom's corporate group already require five days of in-office attendance.

Omnicom is committed to hiring and developing exceptional talent. We agree that talent is uniquely distributed, and we're focused on developing inclusive teams that can bring the best solutions to everything we do. We strongly believe that celebrating what makes us different makes us better together. Join us- we look forward to getting to know you. We will process your personal data in accordance with our Recruitment Privacy Notice.

Link to Recruitment Privacy Notice: https://www.omc.com/privacy-notice

For US Job Seekers:

It is the policy of Omnicom and any of its affiliates to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, religion, color, ethnic origin, gender, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, disability, or any other basis prohibited by applicable federal, state, or local law. EOE/AA/M/D/V/F.