Associate Creative Director, Art

About the role

Synchrony Group is an independently owned network of companies dedicated to providing the highest quality products and services in the medical communications industry. The Associate Creative Director, Art, partners with internal teams and clients on strategy, design, and execution of innovative pharmaceutical marketing initiatives. This role involves understanding client challenges and industry trends, driving the strategic direction of creative initiatives, and assembling project teams to deliver engaging creative solutions.

Responsibilities

• Partner with internal core team members to develop and drive the strategic direction of client deliverables and new business initiatives.
• Engage with client teams to understand their brand, key messages, and strategic objectives and communicate a creative vision.
• Understand therapeutic areas and target audiences of the products Synchrony supports.
• Contract with and provide direction and oversight to external partners and freelance Creative personnel as needed.
• Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to establish project scopes and budgets.
• Ensure adherence of assigned project teams to project timelines, scopes, and budgets.
• Conceptualize and brainstorm innovative brand experiences.
• Review all materials associated with a project and provide feedback regarding design, adherence to project specifications, audience appropriateness, and consistency with established creative strategy.
• Provide project sign-off, ensuring adherence with creative direction and QA process.
• Present work, provide design rationale, and defend work in creative reviews or meetings with internal teams.
• Present creative ideas and deliverables to clients and relay feedback to teams, interpreting and communicating feedback for meaningful updates.
• Participate in new business pitches, representing the vision for creative.
• Recognize and identify staffing needs, develop strong relationships with freelancers and recruiters.
• Keep current with trends in advertising, branding, design, digital technologies, and new media.
• Ensure adherence to all internal and client processes.
• Assist senior leadership with the design and implementation of corporate strategies and cross-selling initiatives.
• Monitor and manage assigned creative activities to ensure timely delivery of products and services, on strategy and within budget.
• Lead, develop, and provide project-specific oversight to assigned internal Creative team members.
• Foster and develop collaboration among departments, internal groups, and individuals to ensure innovative and collaborative solutions to client needs.
• Ensure team compliance with product style guidelines, client contracts, timelines, and budgets.

Key Competencies

• A well-defined sense of diplomacy, including solid negotiation, conflict resolution, and people management skills.
• Ability to provide management direction and developmental support to direct reports in preparation for future positions.
• Ability to oversee, manage, and support priorities and workflow to ensure high-quality project execution according to project timelines and budgets.
• Ability to manage outcomes to win-win resolution.
• Able to identify key issues; creatively and strategically overcome challenges or obstacles.
• Strong presentation and persuasion skills, with the ability to develop a clear point of view and tell a meaningful "story."
• Ability to think in abstract terms; make connections between unrelated ideas; formulate innovative concepts.
• Ability to present ideas and supporting rationale to internal and external teams effectively.
• Demonstrated ability to manage key constituent relationships.
• High level of integrity, confidentiality, and accountability.
• Strong creative design, conceptual, and visual storytelling skills.
• In-depth knowledge of Adobe Creative Cloud design software and Microsoft Office Suite.
• Working knowledge of, or hands-on experience with, interactive programming.
• Excellent analytical thinking, planning, prioritization, and execution skills.
• Effective attention to detail and high degree of accuracy.
• Strong time management and project management skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to work under tight deadlines and multitask.
• Ability to work independently; self-motivated.
• Ability and desire to participate and interact effectively on a team.
• High energy level and team player.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in visual communications, graphic arts, or related course of study.
• Minimum of 5 years’ creative design experience at a medical communications/advertising agency.
• Proven history of leading creative activities across multiple forms of media (e.g., print, digital, video, interactive).

Preferred Skills/Experience

• Agency experience on pharmaceutical accounts.
• Familiarity with video and motion graphics.

Schedule

• Primarily remote position.
• Occasional travel to attend live client or internal team meetings.
• Ability to commit to extra and/or nontraditional hours as client needs require.