Location: Kampala, Uganda
Department: NEXTCom – Creative & Brand Solutions

Duration to Fill Position: Immediately
Reports to: Head of Marketing, Brands

ROLE PURPOSE

The Senior Art  Director Lead is the overall custodian of creative excellence for NEXTCom. The role provides strategic and hands-on leadership across design, content photography, and content repurposing teams, ensuring that all creative output is conceptually strong, visually outstanding, on-brand, and commercially effective.

This role combines big-idea thinking with operational leadership, guiding creative strategy, allocating work, reviewing output, mentoring teams, and representing NEXTCom in high-level client engagements, proposals, and pitches.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1.  Creative Strategy & Vision

• Define and drive NEXTCom’s creative vision across all platforms and
• Translate business and marketing objectives into powerful creative
• Lead conceptual development for major campaigns and brand
• Ensure alignment between creative output and brand

2.  Team Leadership & Management

• Lead and manage:
  • Design Team
  • Content Photography Team
  • Content Repurposing & Adaptation Team
  • Next Creata, Content Hub (event and podcast production assets)
• Allocate work based on skill sets, workload, and
• Mentor, coach, and develop creative
• Build a high-performance, collaborative creative

3.  Creative Execution & Quality Control

• Oversee creative development from brief to final
• Review and approve designs, layouts, visuals, and
• Enforce brand guidelines and creative
• Ensure consistency and excellence across all media brands and client

4.  Client & Commercial Support

• Participate in proposal development and creative sections of
• Present creative ideas and strategies to
• Provide creative input into new business
• Work closely with business and digital teams to shape sellable

5.  Digital-First Creative Leadership

• Champion digital-first thinking across all creative
• Guide teams on content formats optimized for social, mobile, and digital
• Drive innovation in storytelling, formats, and visual

6.  Tools, Systems & Process

• Define creative workflows and processes, alongside Head of
• Introduce and optimize creative tools and
• Ensure efficient collaboration between creative, content, and digital

7.  Capability Building & Training

• Identify skill gaps within creative
• Develop and run regular training and upskilling
• Keep teams updated on global creative trends and best practices

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS:

• 10–12 years of experience in senior, faced-paced, creative
• Proven experience working in a fully-fledged advertising agency
• Strong background in managing multidisciplinary creative
• Demonstrated experience handling client work end-to-
• Strong portfolio showcasing conceptual and executional
• Excellent presentation and storytelling

REQUIRED COMPETENCIES

• Strategic and conceptual thinker
• Strong leadership and people management
• Ability to work under pressure and tight deadlines
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• High attention to detail and quality
• Commercially aware

DIGITAL & CREATIVE TOOLS (PROFICIENCY REQUIRED)

• Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Premiere Pro)
• Figma / Adobe XD
• Canva Pro (for rapid ideation and templates)
• Motion graphics and video editing tools
• AI-assisted creative tools (e.g., Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT for ideation)
• Project management tools (Asana, com, ClickUp, or similar)

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs)

Creative Excellence

• First-time creative approval rate
• Reduction in creative rework
• Internal and client creative quality score

Business Impact

• Campaign engagement performance vs benchmarks
• Creative contribution to proposal win rate
• Brand-led revenue influence

Delivery & Operations

• On-time creative delivery rate
• Average turnaround time per project

Team & Capability

• Team performance scores
• Training sessions delivered per quarter
• Improvement in team skill assessments

WHY JOIN NEXTCOM

• Lead creativity at one of Uganda’s most influential media ecosystems
• Shape the future of digital-first creative in East Africa
• Work with leading brands, platforms, and talent

To apply for this job email your details to people@nextmedia.co.ug