Creative Director

Keystone Distinction Group; Lancaster (SC); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Keystone Distinction Group is seeking a Creative Director to lead strategy, development, and execution of creative across the organization. You will translate business goals into clear creative direction, messaging frameworks, and integrated campaigns across packaging, digital, social, email, UX/UI, and content.

The role requires 10+ years in creative leadership and experience with regulated industries, ensuring all work is compliant yet impactful.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in creative leadership and integrated marketing.
• Experience in regulated industries with ability to craft compliant creative.
• Deep understanding of B2C and B2B marketing dynamics.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the central strategic and creative partner to channel leaders, product managers, and digital teams.
• Translate business objectives into campaign strategies, messaging frameworks, and content plans.
• Develop partnerships with internal teams and agencies to deliver consumer-winning concepts across all touchpoints.
• Ensure the creative function is proactive and aligned with market opportunities.
• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing creative team and manage external agencies.
• Measure creative performance and optimize campaigns based on data.

Skills

Creative leadership

Brand strategy

Integrated marketing

Stakeholder management

Regulated industry knowledge

Education

Bachelor’s in Marketing/Design

MBA a plus

Tools

Adobe Creative Suite

Figma

Job description

Summary of the Position:

The Creative Director will lead the strategy, development, and execution of creative across the organization, serving as the central engine that transforms business objectives into impactful, compliant, and performance-driven campaigns. Working in close partnership with Commercial, Product, and Digital Teams, this role takes defined business goals and translates them into clear creative strategy, messaging frameworks, and integrated campaign execution. This leader plays a pivotal role in the business, ensuring that all creative work is not only compelling and differentiated, but also grounded in customer insight and compliant with legal and regulatory standards.

Roles and Responsibilities:

Creative & Strategic Leadership

• Serve as the central strategic and creative partner to channel leaders, product managers, and digital teams, translating business objectives into clear, actionable creative direction.

• Act as the bridge between business goals and execution, converting requests (e.g., growth targets, product launches, channel priorities) into campaign strategies, messaging frameworks, and content plans.

• Develop and lead partnerships with internal teams and agencies to deliver consumer-winning concepts across all key touchpoints, including packaging, digital/print ads, social, email, UX/UI, and content.

• Ensure the creative function is not just reactive, but proactively shaping how we show up in the market.

Messaging, Campaign Development,& Customer Insights

• Develop a deep understanding of both B2C and B2B audiences.

• Translate customer insights, objections, and motivations into clear, compelling, and compliant messaging.

• Lead the ideation of campaigns that align to specific business goals.

• Ensure all campaigns are tailored to the audience, channel, and moment, while remaining consistent with brand standards.

Creative Excellence, Execution & Cross-Functional Delivery

• Oversee all creative output to ensure it is on-brand, high-quality, differentiated, and visually compelling.

• Support the execution of campaigns by partnering with internal teams and external agencies to bring ideas to life.

• Operate effectively within a regulated environment, ensuring all creative aligns with legal and regulatory requirements while still being impactful.

• Continuously optimize brand standards, creative processes, and governance across all channels and touchpoints.

Team Leadership, Operations & Performance Impact

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing creative team while overseeing external agency partners as the primary point of accountability, ensuring alignment, quality, and execution across all initiatives.

• Maintain and improve workflows and operating models that enable the creative team to efficiently support multiple business stakeholders while maintaining throughput.

• Manage creative resources, timelines, and budgets to deliver work on time, on cost, on spec.

• Partner cross-functionally to measure creative performance, capture learnings, and continuously optimize campaigns to improve business outcomes.

• Perform other assigned duties and follow verbal and written instructions issued by supervisor or designee related to meeting company goals and objectives

• Communicate effectively with your team, supervision, and other departments within the organization, and function within a team, promoting a positive work environment.

Minimum Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience in creative leadership, brand strategy, and integrated marketing, with a proven track record of translating business objectives into high-impact creative campaigns.
• Experience in regulated or highly governed industries (e.g., food, healthcare, supplements, pharmaceuticals, or leading CPG organizations), with demonstrated ability to develop compelling creative within legal and regulatory constraints.
• Deep understanding of both B2C and B2B marketing dynamics, across healthcare, veterinary, retail, or ecommerce environments.
• Proven ability to lead the development of integrated, omnichannel campaigns across packaging, digital, social, ecommerce, and content ecosystems.
• Strong commercial and analytical acumen, with experience measuring creative performance, interpreting data, and connecting creative output to business KPIs.
• Experience building, leading, and scaling creative teams and agency partnerships, including establishing processes, prioritization, and workflows.
• Proficiency in industry-standard creative tools (Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, etc.), with the ability to guide and evaluate high-quality design and content output.
• Travel 10%–20%.

Education and Experience: Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent in marketing, or design-related discipline. MBA or other relevant advanced degree, a plus.