Position Intel:
The Creative Services Director will have the ability to translate business needs into powerful creative executions. This role will lead a dedicated team of creative professionals and work with internal cross-functional teams and external agency partners to ensure our creative supports our overall brand strategy, achieves business objectives, and is delivered through a customer-centric approach. The ideal candidate is collaborative, resourceful, has an in-depth understanding of the creative production process, experience managing and directing creative teams and a track-record of growing a brand with high-volume creative requirements effectively.
Responsibilities:
- Elevate the quality of design and conceptual work to advance our branded content used in multiple channels including, but not limited to, lodges, web, email, social and digital.
- Provide strategic, innovative, and design thinking-led solutions that facilitate fresh, compelling creative concepts delivering business objectives. Demonstrate direction through hands-on execution.
- Provide guidance, leadership and mentorship to the creative services team by managing performance and developing team members, both professionally and personally.
- Oversee, design, and develop content and assets both in-house and through agency partners.
- Build strong relationships with cross-functional business partners within the organization including Retail, Digital, Web, Food & Beverage, Operations, Communications and lodges to drive quality work, scope projects, develop briefs and budgets, and timelines.
- Facilitate creative project kick-offs with clear briefing and implement brainstorming sessions with internal creative team while ensuring consistency with brand standards.
- Advance new ideas and approaches, within the brand voice, to keep the brand evolving and unique.
- Lead multiple projects simultaneously in a fast-paced environment including creation of work plans and budgets, management of timelines and building a culture of accountability.
- Determine best tools, frameworks, systems and other resources that allow teams to scale creative excellence.
Qualifications:
- 8-10+ years’ experience of leading creative for a large relevant, consumer brand/or in retail/hospitality preferred
- Experience leading an in-house creative studio or similar environment.
- Demonstrated strong creative background (graphic design, copywriting, production, etc.) including expertise with Adobe Creative Suite such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.
- Demonstrated track record of team management experience including growing, developing and building teams and people.
- Experience working cross-functionally and managing workflow effectively.
- Demonstrated excellent communication skills, written and verbal.
- Experience across mediums (video, photo, interactive, print, etc.) and channels (TV, digital advertising, web, email, mobile, social media, on-property, etc.).
- Demonstrated ability to work well under pressure, excel and be at ease with ambiguity and achieve results in a fast-paced environment.
- Willingness to roll-up sleeves, get into the details and execute work alongside the team.
- Demonstrated team player, motivated to build internal excitement and alignment.
- Willingness to travel up to 20% to locations across the country.
- Willingness to work out of corporate office located in Chicago, IL (Monday/Friday optional work from home, Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday in office, with the ability to leverage 'work from anywhere weeks' for added schedule flexibility)
Top Skills VP of Creative Looking for:
- Strong design acumen
- Do and direct the team (i.e., if team is struggling and can't get to lock up that we need, put thoughts together to produce lock up)
- Solutions oriented, manage various and different types of requests, understanding of and handle on creative briefing process, knows what makes great creative
- Communication amongst stakeholders, feedback a lot internally to team and externally to partners
- Brand savvy (gets how to build a brand, integrated marketing)
