Head of Creative (Cape Town)

Job description

Head of creative: Creative Leadership  ·  Team Development  ·  Strategic Design

Department: Creative

Reports to: Founder & Managing Director

Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Employment type: Full-Time, Permanent

Direct reports: 4–5 (Junior Art Directors, Art Director, Senior Art Director, AI Specialist)
  
The role

We’re looking for a Head of Creative to lead our Cape Town-based creative studio. This is a senior leadership position with hands-on creative execution. You will direct, you will design, and you will build.

You will take ownership of a team of talented, early-career designers and develop them into a high-performing creative unit. You’ll set the bar for craft, drive timelines, optimise output, and work to expand the team’s capabilities into video, animation, post-production, and AI-driven creative workflows. You will also oversee our emerging AI Studio function, guiding a dedicated team member who is building AI-first creative processes—helping refine their visual taste and channelling AI capabilities into scalable production workflows for key visuals, social assets, UGC, and performance creative.

This is not a pure management role. You need to be exceptional at the work itself. You need to obsess over typography, layout, systems, and craft. You need to build beautiful things and teach others to do the same.

Critically, you must bring deep marketing context. We are a marketing agency. The strategy behind how design is used as a communication tool is central to everything we deliver. You need to understand why we’re making something, not just how it looks—and bring that thinking into every brief, every review, and every client interaction.

When the Founder is travelling, you will work closely with the Head of Operations and the Head of Development to lead the company. This role has a clear trajectory toward senior leadership.

What you'll doCreative direction and execution

• Lead all creative output across the agency—social, web, email, paid media, key visuals, retail signage, PDP content, presentations, and brand collateral
• Maintain hands-on design work while directing the team; this is a player-coach role
• Set and enforce quality standards for typography, layout, colour, composition, and brand consistency
• Develop and expand brand systems for clients operating within tightly defined global guidelines
• Build out visual territories, key visuals, and campaign-level creative for major beauty, skincare, and CPG brands
• Take creative risks—push the agency’s portfolio into bold, distinctive territory

Team leadership and development

• Manage and mentor a team of 4–5 creatives (junior art directors through senior art director level)
• Conduct skills assessments and identify gaps relative to active scopes of work
• Hire to fill open positions, starting with an immediate junior art director backfill
• Build internal training, review processes, and quality control systems
• Develop team capabilities in video production, motion design, animation, and post-production
• Create a culture of craft, accountability, speed, and creative ambition

AI studio oversight

• Oversee the AI studio function, guiding a dedicated team member in AI-first creative production
• Steer the taste, visual direction, and quality of AI-generated outputs
• Integrate AI workflows into the broader creative process—key visuals, social content, UGC, performance creative, and video
• Stay current with emerging AI creative tools and push the team to adopt them meaningfully
• Help position our agency as a leader in AI-native creative production

Strategic and client-facing work

• Collaborate on creative briefs with an understanding of marketing strategy, business objectives, and client positioning
• Engage directly with clients—present work, absorb feedback, and build trust
• Partner with the marketing team to ensure creative output is strategically grounded
• Contribute to business development by elevating the quality and storytelling of the agency’s portfolio

Operational leadership

• Optimise creative timelines and deliverable workflows in coordination with the operations manager
• Serve as a senior leader in the Founder’s absence, working alongside the head of operations and head of development
• Build and maintain the agency’s creative infrastructure—templates, asset libraries, file organisation, and review processes
• Contribute to company culture, team cohesion, and the agency’s identity

Team structure

You will lead the creative team within a compact, senior-oriented organisation:

• Direct reports: 2 Junior art directors (one is an immediate backfill, your first hire)
• 1 Art director
• 1 Senior art director
• AI Specialist

You will collaborate closely with the head of operations (who manages project timelines), the head of development (web and technical builds), and the marketing team (2 x full-time). The founder works directly with you on creative direction, strategic accounts, and company leadership.

Compensation and benefits

• Commensurate with experience and capability
• Opportunity to shape and grow the creative department from the ground up
• Clear leadership trajectory within a fast-growing, internationally operating agency
• Direct partnership with the founder on high-profile client work and agency strategy

Experience

• 10+ years of professional design experience, with significant time in agency environments
• Proven track record building brands from scratch and executing within established brand systems
• Experience across B2B, DTC, service-based businesses, healthcare/medical, beauty, and CPG verticals
• Demonstrated experience managing, mentoring, and scaling creative teams
• Strong background in digital-first design: social media, web, email, paid media, PDPs, and digital signage
• Experience with client-facing work—presenting creative, managing feedback, and building long-term relationships

Skills 

• Exceptional typography, text layout, and understanding of font families and type systems
• Deep understanding of size, scale, composition, and visual hierarchy
• Ability to create beautiful work within tightly constrained brand guidelines
• Proficiency in Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, and presentation tools
• Working knowledge of AI creative tools and workflows (image generation, video synthesis, content rendering)
• Strong understanding of marketing strategy, campaign planning, and how design serves business objectives

Attributes

• Relentlessly high standards—you notice what others miss and you don’t ship anything you wouldn’t put your name on
• Self-directed and operationally savvy—you don’t need to be managed
• Comfortable with high-velocity work environments and a founder who is meticulous, energised, and direct
• Excited to build—build a team, build an agency portfolio, build the agency’s own brand
• Curious about AI and genuinely excited about integrating it into creative production
• English is your primary language

Posted on 06 Jul 08:59, Closing date 12 Jul