[Hiring] Executive Creative Director @Oxford Road

Role Description

The Executive Creative Director is Oxford Road's most senior creative leader, accountable for the quality, performance, and culture of everything the Creative department produces across host-read, pre-produced audio, and bespoke 360-degree campaigns. This role owns the creative standard across every client account, not just the highest-profile ones, and is responsible for ensuring that standard is consistently met, measurably tied to results, and strengthened by every test the team runs.

This is a leadership role built around three commitments:

• Quality on everything that ships
• Creative tied to performance
• Testing built in as a standard practice rather than an afterthought

The ECD is the keeper of the craft and the driver of the creative department's contribution to client outcomes, agency growth, and new business.

Qualifications

• 10 or more years of experience in creative leadership, with a track record of owning creative quality across multiple accounts or productions simultaneously
• Deep fluency in audio advertising: host-read, pre-produced, and bespoke formats; candidates with strong audio or podcast creative backgrounds are strongly preferred
• Demonstrated ability to connect creative decisions to measurable performance outcomes; comfort working with data, analytics teams, and test-and-learn frameworks as inputs to creative direction
• Experience leading and developing creative teams across writing and production disciplines; a coach and standard-setter, not just a practitioner
• Strong point of view on what makes audio creative work: clarity of message, authenticity of voice, structure that converts; able to articulate and transfer that standard to a team
• Experience owning or contributing to new business pitches: concept development, creative presentation, and demo work in high-stakes settings
• Comfort working directly with talent: onboarding hosts, providing structured feedback, and maintaining creative relationships at the senior level
• A bias toward ownership: someone who runs toward gaps, raises the standard without being asked, and holds the quality bar even under deadline pressure

Requirements

• Final decision-maker on creative quality: what ships and what does not, across all accounts and both production disciplines
• Authority to direct the creative team across writing and production in service of quality and performance outcomes
• Owns casting, talent direction, and host feedback structures
• Owns creative concept and approach for new business pitches; coordinates with account leadership on pitch strategy and timing
• Escalates resource, capacity, and structural gaps to the Chief Executive Officer with recommendations

Benefits

• Competitive salary range: $170-210k USD base + incentive plan

What You'll Do

• Pillar 1: Quality on Everything That Ships
  • Own QC across all creative that ships. Review work in flight against a clear quality bar before it reaches a client.
  • Close the feedback loop so direction reaches writers directly.
  • Hold host-read and pre-produced work to the distinct craft standards each discipline requires.
• Pillar 2: Creative Tied to Performance
  • Own the connection between what ships and how it performs.
  • Work with Analytics and account teams to establish performance baselines.
  • Ensure what the team learns in market changes how they write, cast, and coach.
• Pillar 3: Testing Built In
  • Foster a team that is curious about what is working, what is not, and why.
  • Make a clear hypothesis and planned variants a standard part of how briefs are written.
• Leading the Department
  • Lead and develop the full creative team across writing tiers (Bespoke and Format) and production disciplines (host-read and pre-produced).
  • Serve as the senior creative point of contact for key clients and talent.
  • Own the department's presence in every pitch: concept development, decks, and demo work.
  • Own creative support for bespoke, creator-first campaigns.
  • Surface new formats, offerings, and creative opportunities as they emerge from the work.

Key Performance Indicators

• Creative Quality
  • Audiolytics score compliance: percentage of in-market creative meeting the 90% target
  • QC turnaround: creative reviewed before client delivery, not after, with no material exceptions
  • Host-read turnaround speed on fire drills and standard requests, within defined SLA
• Performance and Testing
  • Share of active accounts with established performance baselines
  • Share of active accounts with creative decisions informed by performance or test data, growing quarter-over-quarter
  • Share of active accounts running at least one creative test per quarter
• Leadership
  • Pitch win rate on new business opportunities where Creative is involved
  • Creative team retention and development: direct reports growing in capability and remaining engaged
  • Client and talent satisfaction with creative quality and responsiveness

What This Role Is Not

• Not a hands-on copywriting role for every account.
• Not a testing infrastructure role.
• Not a pricing or P&L role.
• Not a media strategy or buying role.

Key Relationships

• Chief Executive Officer: Direct reporting relationship; accountable for creative department quality, team performance, and strategic creative direction
• President: Coordinates on agency-wide creative positioning, new business strategy, and client escalations
• Analytics Team: Primary partner on performance data, Audiolytics integration, test design, and the test-and-learn record
• Compliance Team: Coordinates on script substantiation, IO requirements, and the integration of compliance signal into creative coaching
• Account and Client Growth Teams: Partners on pitch creative, client QBRs, and performance-based creative direction conversations
• Creator Partnerships: Coordinates on bespoke, creator-first campaigns and 360-degree deal creative
• Finance: Coordinates on production resource needs; does not own pricing or P&L

Why This Role Matters

Creative is not a cost center at Oxford Road. It is one of the primary drivers of whether clients get results and stay. Every script that ships without a clear value proposition, every host-read that lands flat, every campaign that cannot be connected to measurable outcomes is a missed opportunity to prove what this agency can do. The Executive Creative Director is accountable for ensuring that does not happen, consistently, across every account, not just the ones leadership is watching. A strong ECD means clients win faster, advocacy compounds, and new business is easier to win. Without it, the agency's creative output is only as good as whoever happened to review it last.