Creative Director (Director, Creative)

We are looking for a Creative Director (Director, Creative) to join our Marketing team.

Reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer , you will define and evolve Newsela's creative vision across our portfolio of brands, ensuring every customer touchpoint reflects a cohesive, differentiated, and high-impact brand experience. As the senior creative leader within Marketing, you'll partner with executive stakeholders to translate business strategy into compelling creative direction while building the operating model that enables scalable, high-quality creative execution. While remaining close to the creative work, you'll personally lead design for select high-visibility initiatives and serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership on brand, storytelling, and customer experience.

What You'll Be Doing:

• Creative Strategy
• Define and evolve Newsela's creative vision and visual identity across Newsela's portfolio of brands, ensuring a cohesive, differentiated, and high-impact customer experience.
• Translate business priorities, audience insights, and brand strategy into compelling creative direction across marketing campaigns, product launches, and corporate initiatives.
• Develop and evolve scalable visual systems, design frameworks, and brand standards that enable consistency while allowing each brand to maintain its unique identity.
• Lead ongoing brand governance by reviewing and elevating creative assets across brands to ensure consistency, quality, accessibility, and alignment with Newsela's brand standards
• Establish and uphold creative standards that drive excellence across digital, print, motion, web, and campaign creative.
• Serve as the final creative authority for high-impact campaigns, executive communications, and major brand initiatives.
• Partner with Marketing leadership to align creative priorities and investments with business objectives and measurable business outcomes.
• Creative Leadership & Execution
• Lead the creative vision and execution for Newsela's highest-priority marketing campaigns, digital platforms, corporate initiatives, and executive communications.
• Provide hands-on creative leadership for select initiatives while establishing the quality standards and creative direction that guide all work across the portfolio.
• Partner cross-functionally to deliver integrated creative solutions that advance business objectives and strengthen customer engagement.
• Serve as the creative lead throughout the lifecycle of strategic initiatives, ensuring exceptional quality, consistency, and business impact.
• Operational Architecture
• You will establish the operating model that enables the Creative function to scale, ensuring the team delivers exceptional work with speed, consistency, and efficiency.
• Establish and continuously optimize the creative operating model, including intake, prioritization, resource planning, production timelines, and quality standards.
• Develop scalable workflows, governance, and creative review processes that improve collaboration across Marketing and cross-functional partners.
• Balance internal team capacity with external agency and contractor resources to meet evolving business needs.
• Identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency while maintaining a high bar for creative excellence.
• Executive and External Partnership
• Partner with Marketing leadership and cross-functional stakeholders to shape creative strategy and campaign direction from concept through execution.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership on brand positioning, visual storytelling, customer experience, and creative strategy.
• Influence creative priorities and investments by aligning recommendations with business objectives, customer insights, and marketing goals.
• Build, manage, and optimize relationships with external agencies, freelancers, and creative partners to expand the team's capabilities.
• Establish clear creative briefs, quality standards, and performance expectations for external partners, ensuring work consistently reflects Newsela's brand and creative vision.
• Evaluate agency performance, resource allocation, and external partnerships to ensure high-quality delivery, operational efficiency, and scalability.

About You:

• Experience: 10+ years of design experience, ideally blending top-tier creative agency environments with sophisticated in-house brand teams.
• Executive Presence: Proven track record of presenting complex creative concepts, mood boards, and visual systems directly to executive leadership, with the ability to articulate the "why" behind design choices.
• Creative Leadership: Demonstrated success leading and developing high-performing creative teams through coaching, clear creative direction, and constructive feedback. Experience building collaborative creative cultures while managing internal designers, agencies, and external creative partners.
• Brand Evolution Expertise: Deep experience working within, evolving, and scaling complex visual identity systems. You understand how to transition brands through periods of growth and modernization.
• Process-Driven: Experience working within highly mature, structured creative workflows, and a passion for establishing those frameworks (briefs, review cycles, asset management) in a growing environment.
• Portfolio: A stunning portfolio demonstrating exceptional craft across digital, print, and multi-channel brand campaigns, showcasing an ability to handle complex, multi-product ecosystems.
• Tech Stack:
• Expert-level mastery of Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere/After Effects a plus).
• Proficiency in Canva (for building scalable templates for broader team use).
• Experience utilizing JIRA (or similar enterprise project management tools) to manage creative ticketing, workflows, and timelines.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Fine Arts, Communication Design, or equivalent practical experience.
• In-person collaboration: You value in-person time and collaboration and are willing to travel for special projects and occasions.

Preferences

• Industry Experience: Experience in EdTech, SaaS, or multi-product corporate environments is highly preferred.

All offers of employment are contingent upon the successful completion of a background check as part of our pre-employment process.

Final compensation will be determined based on the candidate’s individual skills, qualifications, and experience. Total compensation for this role also includes incentive stock options, a bonus potential, and benefits. 

Base Compensation Range

$130,000

$130,000—$150,000 USD