Associate Director, Creative Strategy EMEA - London

Sell what you love. For us and millions of users across the globe, that’s Spotify. Join the Sales team and you’ll build the relationships that help grow our business in existing markets and beyond. We don’t just sell creative solutions to our clients and partners, we help to shape them; using our expert knowledge of ad products, sales channels and the industry to impact the way the world experiences music and podcasts.

The Creative Lab sits within Spotify Advertising, the business unit within Spotify that focuses on connecting brands to billions of fans around the world. Creative Lab is Spotify Advertising’s in-house creative agency, responsible for building branded experiences. We collaborate with brands and agencies to inspire, create, and scale creativity with Spotify-first thinking.

We are seeking a transformative leader to join our EMEA creative strategy team, inspiring world-class ideas centered on Spotify through proactive and reactive creative solutions. Based in London, this role champions storytelling, leveraging our platform’s unique capabilities to elevate brands, creators, and advertisers. The ideal candidate is a strategic problem solver at the intersection of technology and storytelling, capable of shaping audience-centric ideas, engaging Fortune 500 executives, and building narratives that highlight our platform’s potential. They will lead a diverse, multi-market team, driving innovation in creative ad formats while positioning Spotify as the most inspiring platform for advertisers. With a deep understanding of industry trends and product innovation, they will navigate complex challenges, strengthen our market impact, and build award-winning work that cements Spotify’s role in shaping the future.

• Build and lead the EMEA creative strategy arm of the Creative Lab to deliver the most impactful concepts, positioning and creative solutions.
• Inspire and educate internal and external teams on the power of creativity to connect brands to fans.
• Own and lead the regional EMEA market’s books of businesses and strategic approach in partnership with the heads of sales in those two regions with goal to build a world class advertising platform.
• Partner with clients and agencies to develop award-winning, best in class advertising on Spotify at scale.
• Manage all operational responsibilities including account & resource management, objectives and key results tracking and reporting processes within the team and with cross-functional teams to ensure impact is captured and efficiency is top of mind.
• Identify, develop and maintain a unique position for Spotify’s creative offerings and deliver them in a compelling way to convince partners to explore solutions with us.
• Develop, plan and scale approach to supporting top clients; driving approach to JBP support and coordination.
• Facilitate inspirational workshops with senior level partners to find the right balance of boundary pushing creative expression and brand realities.
• Work closely with other teams within the Creative Lab, including our mighty ops and production team who leads world class craft and execution for our clients, our creative intelligence team who work with our insights and data science teams to understand creative best practices that will inform the development of best in class, effective campaigns on Spotify and a strong bench of global creative leads across all subject areas.
• Develop and demonstrate creative thought leadership on industry, advertising, visual and digital culture and trends as input and fodder to inspire internal and external partners.

• 10+ years of experience in creative direction, creative strategy at a platform, media brand or agency; experience as an in-house brand creative director or strategist a plus but not required.
• 5+ years leading creative teams. Experience leading a creative group within a tech company and across geographically dispersed teams is a plus.
• Superlative cross-functional partnership skills that will help align our sales, marketing and product partners to our vision while supporting overall goals of the business.
• Excellent presenter that can flex from a small room of CMOs, CCOs to a large room of industry experts, and inspire all to creative storytelling on Spotify Ads.
• Highly organised with strong operational skills, and experience working across time zones and markets.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, matrixed environment and across different partners in business marketing, brand, and product teams to build consensus on shared initiatives.
• Experience working with senior-level partners and clients at agencies and brands.
• Keen observer and documentor of culture, with a keen understanding of what is relevant and curious about upcoming visual, digital and tech trends.
• Expert written and verbal communicator, with the ability to articulate abstract creative concepts and persuade audiences when required.
• Deep understanding of integrated marketing development, tech platforms and social media landscape, with experience in digital first production.

• This role is based in London.
• We offer you the flexibility to work where you work best! There will be some in-person meetings, but still allows for flexibility to work from home. We ask that you come into the office 2 times per week.

Spotify is an equal opportunity employer. You are welcome at Spotify for who you are, no matter where you come from, what you look like, or what’s playing in your headphones. Our platform is for everyone, and so is our workplace. The more voices we have represented and amplified in our business, the more we will all thrive, contribute, and be forward-thinking! So bring us your personal experience, your perspectives, and your background. It’s in our differences that we will find the power to keep revolutionizing the way the world listens.

Spotify transformed music listening forever when we launched in 2008. Our mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the chance to enjoy and be passionate about these creators. Everything we do is driven by our love for music and podcasting. Today, we are the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service.