Ruder Finn

Vice President, Creative Planning, Brand Experience

Ruder Finn$150K — $210K *
Media
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years in creative strategy or planning, with 5+ years in consumer brand strategy
  • Experience with integrated consumer communications in fast-moving categories
  • Preferred agency experience or working with cross-functional teams
  • Ability to translate business priorities into effective communication strategies
  • Deep understanding of channels like earned media, social, and digital for brand relevance
  • Strong awareness of cultural trends and ability to leverage them for client opportunities
  • Experience in developing standout creative concepts for campaigns and activations
  • Bachelor's degree in relevant fields such as communications or marketing
  • Curiosity and confidence to innovate and challenge conventional ideas
  • Familiarity with integrating AI tools into creative and communication processes

Responsibilities

  • Create attention-grabbing ideas from business challenges and cultural insights
  • Lead the creative process from concept through execution
  • Set high standards for originality in creative work
  • Act as a trusted creative partner to clients and stakeholders
  • Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams on integrated programs
  • Identify cultural trends to turn them into creative opportunities
  • Drive new business development and enhance existing client relationships
  • Facilitate productive creative sessions and direct team efforts
  • Explore innovative storytelling methods to enhance creative outcomes

Benefits

  • Competitive base salary and bonus opportunities
  • Health, dental, and vision insurance, plus life insurance
  • Flexible spending account and 401k with match
  • Monthly allowance for cell phone and office equipment
  • Generous PTO and paid parental leave
  • Transit benefits and professional development opportunities
  • Workplace flexibility with social gatherings
Full Job Description

We’re looking for a Vice President, Creative Planning who can find the idea hiding inside a business problem — then help turn it into something people want to talk about, participate in, and share. You’ll work across a portfolio of fast-moving consumer brands, partnering with strategy and integrated teams to create earned-first ideas that can live anywhere: social, creators, experiences, partnerships, content, PR, and beyond.

This is a hands-on creative leadership role for someone who loves the messy middle between insight and execution: finding the cultural tension, cracking the idea, making it bigger, and helping teams bring it to life.

This role will be part of our Creative Planning team, partnering closely with a strategist partner, in collaboration with digital, social, analytics, and creator teams to support existing client work and new business opportunities primarily for our Brand Experience team. The work revolves around creating integrated campaigns that connect brands with people through culture, creativity, earned influence, and unforgettable experiences.

Your mandate is bigger than delivering strong creative work: you’ll help raise the creative ambition of Brand Experience — pushing teams beyond familiar category ideas toward work with a real reason to exist in culture.

Key Responsibilities
  • Create ideas that earn attention. Turn client business challenges, strategic insights, cultural cues, audience behaviors, and data into distinctive creative territories, platforms, campaigns, activations, and integrated brand experiences that get noticed, talked about, and acted on.

  • Lead creative development from brief to execution. Shape campaign approaches; lead brainstorms, workshops, and concept development; and ensure the work stays strategically grounded, creatively ambitious, audience-relevant, and true to the core idea.

  • Raise the creative bar. Set a high standard for originality across the work. Originate, review, and strengthen concepts, creative rationales, campaign narratives, POVs, plans, decks, and other client-facing materials — pushing teams beyond the expected and making good ideas better.

  • Be a trusted creative voice with clients. Serve as a creative partner to key clients, presenting and selling ideas with clarity and conviction, connecting creative choices to business value, navigating feedback, and building the trust required to bring ambitious ideas to life.

  • Build integrated ideas with multidisciplinary teams. Partner closely with other specialists to turn earned-first ideas into connected programs across channels. Be a strong creative voice and collaborative partner within integrated agency teams.

  • Turn culture into creative opportunities. Stay close to culture shifts, communities, audience behavior, earned and social media and creator trends, technology, and the marketplace.

  • Help win new business and grow existing relationships. Play a leading creative role in pitches and organic growth opportunities, helping shape the central creative idea, pitch narrative, integrated activations, and presentations that make our thinking distinctive and compelling.

  • Make the team and the work better. Create productive conditions for creativity: lead working sessions with clarity, give useful creative direction, solve problems collaboratively, and help people get to stronger work.

  • Expand how we create. Explore emerging storytelling approaches and technologies that can unlock new forms of creativity, improve how teams develop ideas, and ultimately produce better outcomes for clients.

Qualifications

  • 10+ years of experience in creative strategy, planning, integrated marketing, communications, or a related creative environment, with at least 5 years focused on consumer brand strategy and communications

  • Proven expertise working with integrated consumer communications programs for categories such as CPG, food, wellness, lifestyle, parenting, retail, consumer tech, or other fast-moving consumer brands

  • Experience working in an agency environment or closely with cross-functional agency teams is strongly preferred

  • You have demonstrated ability to translate client business priorities into smart communications strategies, integrated workstreams, compelling creative platforms, and clear action plans for teams.

  • You possess a deep understanding of how earned media, influencer, social, experiential, partnerships, content, and digital channels work together to build modern brand relevance and drive measurable outcomes.

  • You have a sharp eye for culture, trends, communities, and conversation shifts, with the ability to turn emerging stories into timely, ownable client opportunities.

  • You have experience developing creative concepts for standout campaigns, pitches, brand moments, activations, or creative concepts.

  • Bachelor's degree in communications, marketing, advertising, writing, design, strategy, or a related field

  • You are a curious, entrepreneurial, and solutions-oriented mindset, with the confidence to challenge convention, encourage fresh thinking, and turn friction into opportunity.

  • You have comfort and curiosity around integrating AI tools into communications planning, creative development, workflows, reporting, and team processes.

Benefits and More

  • You will receive a competitive base salary and bonus opportunity

  • You will also be able to enroll in our Health, Dental, Vision, company paid Life Insurance, Flexible Spending Account, as well as 401k (match) plan.

  • Monthly allowance for cell phone, office equipment, etc.

  • Generous PTO policy with paid maternity/paternity leave

  • Transit benefits

  • Professional learning and development opportunities

  • Workplace flexibility

  • On-site and off-site social gatherings

The anticipated salary range for this position, at the time of posting, is $150,000-$210,000. The salary of the applicant selected for this role will be based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, education, internal equity, geography, relevant years of experience, certifications, skills, abilities of the selected applicant, and other job-related qualifications. In addition, a range of medical, dental, vision, disability, 401(k) matching, paid time off, and/or other benefits also are available by the company.

About Ruder Finn

Ruder Finn is a global public relations and communications firm headquartered in New York, NY. The company was founded in 1948 by David Finn and Bill Ruder and has since grown to have offices in more than 20 countries. Ruder Finn offers a range of services, including public relations, digital marketing, and crisis management. The firm has worked with a variety of clients across industries, including healthcare, technology, and finance. Ruder Finn has won numerous awards for its work, including recognition from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and the PRWeek Awards.
Learn more about Ruder Finn
Size
500 employees
Industry
Founded
2002

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