Creative Performance Lead

Department: Creative Strategy | Performance Creative | Growth Strategy

Reports to: Head of Creative Strategy (with dotted line to the Chief Creative Officer)

Location: Hybrid, Central London (Camden Roundhouse)

Compensation: Competitive Base + Benefits Scheme + 28 Days Paid Holiday + Private Health

The Opportunity

We're hiring a Strategic Lead to join the Creative Strategy leadership team at the UK's largest performance creative department. Hambi Media (ECD) is the creative engine of the Soar Group - the UK's #1 independent Meta agency group. We've put £300M+ of Meta spend through our data warehouse, and our Creative Strategy department is the group's biggest revenue driver - producing performance creative across High Production video, UGC, and Static design for 7-9 figure DTC and e-commerce brands. We manage over £100M in ad spend yearly and operate 13 creative pods.

Your remit is unique within that team - you are the bridge between our Growth Strategy function and our Creative Strategy function. The lines between these two departments are blurring fast, and the next evolution of the work demands strategists who think in both languages simultaneously.

Our Creative Strategists are some of the most talented creative thinkers in the industry. But to deliver on our strategic ambition - moving the department from executional throughput to the strategic spine of every client relationship - they need to be equipped to connect creative work to advanced performance, distribution, offer, growth strategy, and the wider commercial system in which our creative lives. That's where you come in.

You'll coach our Senior Creative Strategists to operate at a higher strategic level, lead all departmental training focused on growth strategy and performance, and work with our Growth Strategy team to build the systems and rituals that make these two functions work seamlessly as one. You'll also tap into our £600M+ Meta data warehouse to surface the macro creative insights, trends, and tactical plays that compound across every account in the book.

This is a Creative Lead-level role with a department-wide focus. You won't own a pod or run an account directly, but 40% of your time is still billable - embedded in the strategic support of the four Senior Creative Strategists you'll manage, coaching their thinking on the accounts they own. The other 60% is split across cross-departmental up-skilling, performance constraint work, macro reporting, and cross-function synergising.

If you're an advanced strategist with 5+ years of experience across growth strategy, performance marketing, media buying, or creative strategy - and you have genuine energy for coaching others to think strategically about the work - this is the role where your impact compounds across every client we work with.

Requirements

What You'll Own

• Strategic Coaching & Management (Billable, 40%)
  • Embedded coaching and management of 4 Senior Creative Strategists on the strategic work of their biggest accounts.
  • Help every Senior CS make the leap from being an exceptional creative strategist to a complete strategist - one who connects creative to offer, distribution, performance, and the wider growth ecosystem.
  • Coach the constraint mindset: identifying performance bottlenecks and reverse-engineering the steps required to drive meaningful change.
  • Coach intentionally - reverse-engineer your approach from knowing each individual.
• The Strategic Voice on Growth & Performance
  • Be the primary voice in the Creative Strategy department whenever questions arise that lean heavily on data, growth strategy, performance, or media buying.
  • Build the bridge between Creative Strategy and our Growth Strategy team.
  • Help our strategists develop fluency in: offer, distribution, scaling logic, attribution, funnel, persona development from a growth lens, and how creative ladders into wider commercial strategy.
• Risk Mitigation, Audits & Performance Constraint Identification
  • Cross-department audit authority on priority accounts.
  • Run regular creative audits across the department, surface what's working and what isn't from a performance lens.
• Departmental Training & Upskilling (Growth & Performance Focus)
  • Work closely with the Creative Leads to map out the training plan for the department.
  • Personally lead every session focused on growth strategy, performance, media buying, offer, distribution, and constraint-based thinking.
• Macro Creative Reports from the 9-Figure Data Warehouse
  • Tap into our data warehouse to produce regular macro creative reports.
  • Surface trends, insights, and tactical plays that compound across accounts.
• Cross-Function Systems with the Head of Creative Strategy
  • Work closely with the Head of Creative Strategy to design the systems that ensure Growth Strategy and Creative Strategy functions operate as one.
  • Help shape the next evolution of how these two functions interact at scale.

How You'll Spend Your Time

• Senior CS coaching, management & risk mitigation - 60%
• Cross-department training + synergy - 25%
• Macro reporting from the data warehouse - 15%

What You'll Bring

Must-Have

• 5+ years in a strategic role in performance creative, growth strategy, media buying, or paid social.
• Deep performance fluency.
• Strong understanding of creative strategy in a growth ecosystem.
• Coaching mindset.
• Constraint-based thinking.
• Continuous research + data mindset.
• Outcome Obsessed.
• Kind Candour.
• Extreme Ownership.
• AI-literate and tech-enabled.
• DTC / e-commerce business model literacy at 7-9 figure scale.

Nice-to-Have (Not Required)

• Track record running training sessions or workshops with growth or creative teams.
• Prior experience working across both brand-side and agency-side.
• Familiarity with our internal frameworks.

What Success Looks Like

In your first 90 days

• You've met every Senior CS, CS, Creative Lead, and Growth Strategist across the Soar Group and built initial trust.
• You have full clarity on our processes, our Growth Compass framework, and the wider Growth Strategy infrastructure.
• You're embedded in the strategic work of all four Senior Creative Strategists' biggest accounts.
• Department audit complete: top 3 strategic capability gaps identified across the team.
• At least one department-wide training session delivered.
• First macro creative report from the data warehouse presented.

By month 6

• Blended ECD hit-rate has measurably improved.
• You have helped contribute to an increase in time spent on strategy vs execution by 30% within the Senior CS layer.
• The Creative Strategy and Growth Strategy leadership team sees you as the indispensable bridge between creative and growth.
• The Creative Strategy Department sees you as the voice of performance within the dept.
• Training cadence is fully operational with content owned and delivered by you.
• Cross-function systems with the Growth Strategy team are rolled out.

Benefits

• Enjoy 28 days of annual leave.
• Benefit from our long-service reward scheme.
• Work in a flexible hybrid model.
• Access private health and life insurance.
• Participate in our company pension scheme.
• Take advantage of a one-month annual work-abroad allowance.