Creative Director, Head of Internal Agency

Job description

**Join a Challenger**At EQ, we're remaking banking so every Canadian gets ahead, every day. Serving nearly 4 million Canadians from coast to coast, we offer a wide variety of financial services from banking and lending, to trust and credit union solutions. We've been at this since 1970, challenging the conventions of traditional banking with smarter, faster, and more connected financial experiences. **What's kept us moving?** The people behind it all: challengers who ask better questions, push back on old assumptions, and look for a better way forward. If you're driven to help reshape how banking works for Canadians and the businesses that power our economy, this could be your next big opportunity. We can’t wait to get to know you! **The Work** EQ Bank is building a creative engine inside the business with the taste, speed and ambition of a modern brand studio. As Creative Director / Head of Internal Agency, you will set the creative standard for how EQ Bank shows up every day: in product stories, owned channels, social, editorial, presentations, partner materials and the internal work that helps teams move faster. The studio’s job is to do more than move requests through the system; it should raise the quality, clarity and distinctiveness of the work EQ Bank puts into the world. The ambition is to make EQ Bank’s everyday creative output feel as considered and distinctive as its biggest brand moments. You will lead the ideas, craft, people and operating rhythm that turn business priorities into work people actually notice, understand and want to engage with. ### The Core Responsiblities - Set the creative vision, taste level and quality bar for EQ Bank’s Internal Agency & Media Studio, ensuring the work feels distinctive, useful and worthy of a modern challenger brand. - Lead concept development, art direction, copy direction and design direction across product marketing, owned channels, social, editorial, presentations, partner materials and internal brand moments. - Turn business, product and brand priorities into sharp briefs, creative territories, messaging systems, visual directions and content ideas the team can bring to life. - Review, direct and approve major internal studio work before it moves to senior stakeholders or public-facing channels, raising the bar on both idea and execution, and provide clear creative input on agency-led work where internal channels, product storytelling or brand systems are affected. - Build EQ Bank’s owned media and editorial engine so the brand has an always-on voice that is useful, distinctive and relevant beyond major campaign moments. - Create and evolve reusable creative systems, content formats, presentation approaches and product storytelling assets that help the brand show up with greater consistency and more personality. - Build the studio operating model so great work can happen at speed: clear intake, smart prioritization, strong briefs, useful reviews, practical approvals, organized assets and repeatable production practices. - Determine what internal stakeholder work should be handled by the studio and what should be assigned to freelancers, production partners or specialist vendors. - Partner with Brand Strategy & Governance to ensure creative work is strategically sharp, on brand, accessible, compliant and easy for teams to use. - Partner closely with EQ Bank’s external creative, media and production agencies to understand campaign platforms, extend them into owned and internal channels, maintain creative consistency and determine when work should be handled internally versus externally. - Partner with Product Marketing, Growth, Partnerships, HR, Communications, UX, Customer Experience and Campaign, Culture & Sponsorship Activation to support product launches, internal initiatives, partner programs, sponsorship support and customer-facing content needs. - Present creative work clearly to senior stakeholders, explain the thinking behind recommendations and defend the work without losing collaboration or momentum. - Build a creative culture inside the studio: one where people understand the standard, get useful feedback, feel ownership of the work and keep pushing for clearer, sharper, more effective ideas. ### Let's Talk About You - University degree or college diploma in design, advertising, communications, marketing, media, journalism or a related field is required. - Minimum 10 years of progressive experience in in-house creative leadership, brand-side creative, product marketing creative, content/media, design studio, editorial, agency creative or integrated marketing support roles. - Minimum 4 years of experience leading creative teams, freelancers, production partners or specialist vendors; people management experience is preferred. - Strong portfolio demonstrating conceptual leadership, craft judgment, creative problem solving and the ability to direct and elevate work across a team. The portfolio should show distinctive work across digital, social, editorial, motion, presentation, product marketing or content channels, with evidence of how the work supported brand or business outcomes. - Advanced knowledge of brand identity, design systems, copywriting, art direction, creative strategy, content strategy, editorial, social, product marketing creative, presentation design and production workflows. - Working knowledge of creative operations, including intake, prioritization, resource planning, workflow design, asset management, quality assurance, vendor coordination and stakeholder service models. - Working knowledge of fintech, financial services, product marketing, lifestyle, retail, technology, media, accessibility or regulated marketing environments is an asset. - Experience partnering with external creative agencies, production partners or media teams, with the judgment to know when to build internally, adapt existing work or bring in specialist external support. - Complex communication skills, including giving specific creative direction, providing constructive feedback, presenting and defending creative work, influencing senior stakeholders and aligning cross-functional teams. - Strong creative judgment, taste, coaching ability, prioritization, production discipline, operational thinking and comfort building an in-house creative capability with challenger-bank ambition in a fast-moving environment.