Creative Director

Posted 4 Days Ago
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London, Greater London, England, GBR
In-Office
Entry level
Design • Manufacturing
The Role
Leads the creative vision, standards, and operating model for a global design studio supporting POS, retail activation, merchandising, and shopper marketing. Builds multidisciplinary teams, develops capabilities, drives AI and automation adoption, advises senior clients, shapes creative strategies, and ensures solutions achieve customer, brand, sustainability, manufacturability, and commercial objectives.
Summary Generated by Built In

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 Include:

  • 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.

This role offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of global retail marketing and design, combining strategic leadership with hands-on creative impact in a dynamic international business.


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

Skills Required

  • Highly experienced in senior creative leadership roles within retail marketing, retail design, brand activation, or POS environments
  • Deep expertise in consumer strategy, consumer behavior, path-to-purchase, and retail environments
  • Experience developing POS and retail activation solutions for major FMCG or consumer brands across global or multi-market programs
  • Strong portfolio demonstrating strategic thinking, creative leadership, and design excellence
  • Proven success leading and developing multidisciplinary creative teams
  • Strong stakeholder management skills and ability 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

DS Smith Compensation & Benefits Highlights

The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about DS Smith and has not been reviewed or approved by DS Smith.

  • Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered okay to good across many roles, with some plants indicating competitive or above‑market hourly rates for operators and similar positions. This supports a broadly fair perception of base pay even as experiences vary by site.
  • Healthcare Strength — U.S. offerings include day‑one medical/vision and dental, employer HSA contributions, and 100% company‑paid life and short/long‑term disability, alongside an EAP. Some role descriptions also highlight mental‑health and fertility options.
  • Retirement Support — Packages commonly reference a 401(k) with company match and, in some locations, pension eligibility or company‑funded retirement contributions. This positions retirement benefits as a meaningful component of total rewards.

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The Company
HQ: Maidenhead
12,147 Employees

What We Do

DS Smith provides innovative packaging solutions, paper products and recycling services with a commitment to sustainability and a circular economy. Our core purpose is to Redefine Packaging for a Changing World, and our expert teams work closely with like-minded partners to incorporate renewable resources for products that minimize our environmental impact, reduce complexity and increase profitability through supply chain optimization

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