Senior Vice President of Brand & Creative

Proper Hospitality is seeking a visionary Senior Vice President of Brand & Creative to define and steward the creative direction of our growing portfolio.

Position Overview

Own what Proper is. The brand, the architecture beneath it, and every creative expression of it across the portfolio, plus the standard that keeps each tier distinct and uncopied.

Taste is the job. You set the standard, you defend it, you direct the work, and you often make it yourself. Brand is Proper’s primary differentiator and the durable advantage as execution gets commoditized. This seat exists to protect that and to compound it as we grow.

What You Own

• Brand strategy and evolution: The positioning of Proper and the architecture beneath it: Proper, By Proper, The Collective, Cal Neva, and the wellness platform. What each stands for, how they relate, and where the boundaries are. You develop this alongside the founders, who hold the point of view, and you translate it into something the whole company can actually use.
• Creative direction: Every expression of the brand. Campaigns, photography, art direction, brand identity systems, environmental and print graphics, and the new website. You direct the work and often make it.
• Content and social: The full content engine: photo, video, the library, and how it is produced.
• Brand standards across the portfolio: A working system that holds across 12 properties and the openings ahead of us. Guidelines, a centralized brand library, and a review process fast enough that operators actually follow it. A standard nobody uses is not a standard.
• Final creative sign-off across the company: When creative ships, it ships to this standard. The authority sits with this seat.
• Brand consistency in Proper OS: Encode taste and standards into the operating platform so brand quality scales across a growing portfolio without becoming a bottleneck at your desk.
• Brand Architecture Committee: You hold the brand seat and enforce co-brand and tier rules across the company.

What You Do Not Own

• Partnerships, cultural programming, PR, and membership
• Sales, revenue management, and CRM
• Interior and architecture design in the hotels

You set the standard these functions express. You do not run their channels, their calendars, their spend, or their deals.

Where the Lines Are

The role only works if the boundaries are explicit. These are the ones that will be tested:

• Marketing (Partnerships, Growth, PR, Membership): They run the channels, buy the media, book the talent, and own the events and programming. You set the look and the voice, and you approve for brand fidelity before it ships. On the feed specifically: you own the content engine and the aesthetic system, and their channel work posts inside it. On cultural programming: you hold the taste call on who and what, they own the deal and the execution. This is a peer relationship, so contested calls resolve between the two of you, not up a chain.
• Commercial: Commercial markets inside your standard.
• Development and Design: Property interior and architecture sits with design and development. You own how a property reads as its tier and its brand identity, not the built environment. You interface at the concept and naming layer.
• F&B and Culinary: You own the brand identity and name of an F&B concept. Chef partners and development own the culinary concept and the menu.
• Tiebreaker: If the disagreement is about what the brand is, this seat wins. If it is about how to sell it or when to ship it, Commercial and Marketing win. Anything genuinely unresolved goes to the President, but the default is your call.

What Success Looks Like at 12 Months

• Every property and F&B concept reads unmistakably like its tier, and nothing looks like a competitor’s.
• Social is performing optimally with strong content and engagement.
• A brand system and library exist that operators actually use, and the review process is fast enough to keep up with openings.
• The brand holds when the founders are not in the room.

Who You Are

A creative leader with a point of view, not a manager of agencies. You have taste and you can defend it with reasoning, not preference. You have originated brand identity, not just supervised it.

You have built and run a content and social engine. Not art-directed one from above. You can hire and lead a senior social and content person, stand up a production capability, and turn a weak channel into a strength.

Multi-brand house experience. You have held brand architecture across tiers or sub-brands and kept them distinct. You know how a portfolio brand goes soft and how to prevent it.

Builder-manager. You can build the operating function and delegate it, and still make the work yourself when the moment demands it. This is the trait most candidates overstate, so it will be tested.

You treat AI as amplification of taste, not a cost cut. You are comfortable encoding judgment and standards into a system so quality scales. Proper OS is where this lives.

You hold the line pleasantly and repeatedly. You defend the brand against faster, louder, revenue-urgent pressure without needing to be liked by the revenue team. A brand lead who folds under launch pressure is a strategic miss, not a safe hire. At this level, you carry the standing to win those arguments on your own.

• $250,000-300,000

Compensation & Recognition

• Competitive Salary + Bonus : Rewarding exceptional talent and performance across all levels.
• Recognition Programs : Celebrating achievements big and small through company-wide appreciation and milestone rewards.
• Annual Performance Reviews : Regular opportunities for feedback, growth, and advancement.

Culture of Growth & Belonging

• Culture of Growth : A collaborative, design-forward environment that values creativity, intelligence, and curiosity — where learning and excellence are a daily practice.
• Guided Skills Development : Access to training, leadership programs, mentorship, and cross-property mobility to encourage achievement and discovery.
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging : We honor individuality while fostering a culture of respect and belonging across all teams.
• Community Engagement : Opportunities to give back through local volunteerism, sustainability, and charitable partnerships.
• Comprehensive Health Coverage : Medical, dental, and vision plans through Aetna, designed to fit a range of personal and family needs.
• Wellness Access : Company-subsidized memberships with Equinox and ClassPass, plus wellbeing workshops and mental health resources.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) : Confidential support for emotional wellbeing, financial planning, and life management through Unum.

Time Off & Flexibility

• Paid Time Off : Flexible PTO plus 11 paid holidays each year for corporate team members.
• Paid Parental Leave : Paid time off for eligible employees welcoming a new child through birth, adoption, or foster placement.
• Flexible Work Practices : Hybrid schedules for eligible roles and an emphasis on work-life balance.

Financial Wellbeing & Core Protections

• 401(k) Program : Company match of 50% of employee deferrals, up to the first 4% of eligible compensation.
• Employer-Paid Life & Disability Insurance : Core protections with optional additional coverage.
• Financial Education : Access to planning tools and workshops to support long-term stability and growth.
• Hotel Stay Benefits : 75% off BAR (floor of $100) across the Proper portfolio.
• Design Hotels Partnership : 50% off participating Marriott Design Hotels.
• Dining Discounts : 75% off food & beverage at all Proper Hospitality outlets.
• Lifestyle Perks : Complimentary or subsidized parking, cell phone reimbursement, and exclusive hospitality and retail discounts.

Why Join Proper Hospitality

At Proper, we build experiences that move people — and that begins with the team behind them. As a best-in-class employer, we’re committed to creating one of the Best Places to Work in hospitality by nurturing a culture where creativity, excellence, and humanity thrive together.

Everything we do is grounded in the belief that hospitality is more than a profession - it’s an opportunity to care for others and make lives better. Guided by the Pillars of Proper , we show up with warmth and authenticity (Care Proper), strive for excellence in everything we do (Achieve Proper), think creatively and resourcefully (Imagine Proper), and take pride in the style and culture that make us who we are (Present Proper).

We believe our people are our greatest strength, and we invest deeply in their wellbeing, growth, and sense of belonging. From comprehensive benefits to meaningful development programs, Proper is designed to help you build a career, and a life, that feels as inspiring as the experiences we create for our guests.

Our Commitment: Building the Best Place to Work

Our Best Place to Work initiative is a living commitment — a continuous investment in our people, our culture, and our purpose. We listen, learn, and evolve together to create an environment where everyone feels empowered to imagine boldly, achieve confidently, care deeply, and present themselves authentically.

At Proper, joining the team means more than finding a job — it means joining a community that believes in building beautiful experiences together , for our guests and for one another.