Creative Director (Creative Agency)

Brand, Packaging, Innovation & Activation

Sydney | Full-time | Hybrid/Immediate start available

Please apply via the careers inbox only. Applications close 15 th July 2026. LinkedIn applications will not be reviewed.

We’re looking for an experienced, hands-on Creative Director to lead, mentor and inspire our Sydney design team while raising the creative ambition, quality and consistency of our work.

This is a senior leadership role focused on creative excellence, people development and shaping the next chapter of Co-Partnership’s creative offering. You’ll work autonomously and in consultation with senior leadership and the founders to translate our creative vision into exceptional work through daily collaboration, clear creative direction and decisive leadership.

This isn’t a role for someone who wants to review work from a distance. We’re looking for a Creative Director who loves being in the work and in front of clients, challenging ideas, developing designers, building confidence and creating the environment where great creativity and commercial success can thrive.

As Co-Partnership continues to grow across Sydney and London, this role represents a significant investment in our people and creative future. You’ll have genuine autonomy to shape the studio, influence our creative culture and leave a lasting mark on the agency.

Why Co-Partnership?

We’re a specialist brand and packaging agency focused on beverage and food. That focus means we partner with some of the world’s most recognised and businesses and brands, helping them navigate growth, innovation and transformation through strategy, design and creativity.

Our reputation has been built on combining commercial thinking with exceptional creativity. As we continue to grow globally, we’re looking for a Creative Director who is excited not only by creating outstanding work, but by building a studio where people and ideas flourish.

You will have the opportunity to

• Lead a talented and ambitious team: You’ll inherit a highly capable group of designers who care deeply about craft, collaboration and producing exceptional work. Your role is to unlock their next level.
• Shape the creative future of the agency: Work closely with our Founders, Agency Director and Global Chief Creative Officer to influence the creative direction of both the Sydney studio and the broader agency.
• Be in the work: From first thought to final craft, you’ll play an active role in shaping ideas, mentoring designers and helping teams navigate creative challenges with confidence.
• Create a culture of creative ambition: Champion curiosity, collaboration and continual learning while creating an environment where people feel challenged, supported and inspired to produce their best work.
• Work with flexibility and trust: We operate a hybrid model with collaboration at its core, balancing flexibility with the value of working together in the studio.

Why this role?

This is an opportunity to join a business with a strong creative foundation and help elevate it even further. You won’t be stepping into a studio that needs fixing. Instead, you’ll inherit an experienced, collaborative and highly capable design team looking for a leader who is present, inspiring and invested in helping both the work and the people reach their full potential.

You’ll have the opportunity to strengthen our creative process, develop emerging creative leaders, encourage greater collaboration and bring clarity, confidence and momentum to projects from concept through to execution.

Working closely with the Founders, you’ll play a key role in shaping how creativity continues to evolve across the agency from brand to packaging and beyond as we diversify, while building an environment where great ideas consistently become great work.

What you'll do

• Lead and inspire the Sydney creative team, setting the benchmark for creative excellence.
• Provide hands-on creative direction from concept through to final execution.
• Mentor and develop designers at every level, helping build confidence, capability and future creative leaders.
• Champion bold, strategically-led thinking and encourage measured creative risk-taking.
• Create a highly collaborative studio environment where ideas are shared, challenged and strengthened together.
• Provide clear, timely and decisive creative feedback that builds momentum and confidence.
• Partner closely with Strategy and Client Service to ensure creative thinking is commercially impactful and strategically grounded.
• Strengthen and evolve our creative process to maximise thinking, collaboration and quality throughout every project.
• Represent Co-Partnership’s creative vision with confidence, internally and externally.

What we’re looking for

• Demonstrated senior creative leadership experience (typically 10+ years) within a leading brand, design or packaging agency.
• An exceptional portfolio demonstrating strategic thinking, creative excellence and world-class craft.
• A genuine passion for mentoring and developing creative talent.
• A hands-on leadership style, with a desire to be actively involved throughout the creative process.
• Confident and decisive, with the ability to provide clear creative direction while bringing people with you.
• Naturally collaborative, approachable and ego-free, creating an environment where creativity flourishes.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary branding projects beyond packaging, with an appreciation for broader identity systems and brand experiences.
• Strong presentation and storytelling skills, with the confidence to champion ambitious creative ideas with clients.
• A curiosity for emerging technologies, creative tools and new ways of thinking that continue to evolve the agency’s creative capability.

Success in this role looks like

• Designers are growing faster than they thought possible.
• Ideas are stronger because they are challenged earlier.
• The studio feels energised, collaborative and creatively ambitious.
• Clients experience greater confidence and conviction in our creative recommendations.
• Creative decisions are made clearly and decisively.
• The quality, consistency and ambition of our work continues to raise the benchmark for Co-Partnership.

How this role works

• Full-time.
• Hybrid working, with at least three days per week in our Sydney studio (Monday, Wednesday and Friday), with Tuesday and Thursday available for remote work.
• Regular collaboration with our London studio and Global Chief Creative Officer.
• Opportunity to influence the long-term creative direction of a growing global agency.

If you’re excited by the opportunity to build people as much as portfolios, create world-class work alongside an exceptional team, and help shape the future of Co-Partnership, we’d love to hear from you.

Please email ***email_hidden*** with the subject line: Creative Director Sydney Application – YOUR NAME, include a genuine cover letter (no AI slop please), portfolio link, and your favourite brand and why. Applications close 15 th July 2026.

Not open to recruiters at this time.