Creative and Brand Lead

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; Redwood City (CA); Hybrid; USD 193,000 - 241,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employer 401(k) match

Volunteer time off

Family‑forming benefits

Relocation support

Job summary

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in Redwood City is hiring a Creative & Brand Lead to scale Biohub’s creative output. You’ll guide work across internal teams and external partners, ensuring clarity, high quality, and alignment with our mission while managing a small team of creatives.

This role spans brand, content, and execution, requiring taste, influence, and the ability to drive great work from agencies on complex and technical subjects.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in brand/creative roles, preferably in tech/startup/agency.
• 3+ years of management experience.
• Experience managing creative agencies.
• Ability to guide and elevate creative work.
• High creative standards and strong visual judgment.
• Experience with complex or technical subject matter.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication.

Responsibilities

• Guide development of creative across workstreams (tech launch, evergreen storytelling).
• Ensure output meets a high bar for clarity, quality, and consistency.
• Translate complex scientific and technical work into accessible creative direction.
• Lead day-to-day relationships with external creative and production agencies.
• Manage timelines, scopes, and expectations across multiple partners.
• Collaborate with teams across product, social, and communications.
• Manage a small team of creatives and contractors.

Skills

Brand/Creative leadership

Management

Agency management

Creative direction

Visual judgment

Technical content

Cross-functional

Communication

Execution

Job description

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg to harness the power of technology to pursue some of society’s most ambitious goals — from curing or preventing all disease to transforming how students learn.

At CZI, you’ll join a deeply collaborative, mission-driven community where your work helps drive breakthroughs across our flagship nonprofit organizations, Biohub and Learning Commons. Whether enabling scientific breakthroughs via open science and AI-powered biology or strengthening the tools teachers and students rely on every day, your contributions help turn bold ideas into real-world impact.

Our teams operate at the intersection of innovation and scale, building the infrastructure, partnerships, and capabilities that allow scientists, educators, and innovators to tackle some of the most complex challenges of our time — and to do so with urgency, integrity, and optimism.

The Team

The Operations team is a key partner in enabling Biohub’s pioneering work to combine frontier AI with frontier biology to solve disease and Learning Commons’ mission to build AI infrastructure that aligns how students learn with the tools that shape their learning experiences.

Operations includes our Central Tech, Finance, Marketing & Communications, People, and Real Estate / Workplace / Events / Facilities / Security (REWFS) teams. Together, these teams create the systems, programs, and experiences that empower our partners and colleagues across Biohub and Learning Commons to drive impact.

This work requires strategic and operational rigor, creativity, and deep collaboration. Whether designing world-class employee experiences, safeguarding data and infrastructure, or shaping how we communicate our impact, Operations plays a critical role in helping deliver meaningful change at scale.

The Opportunity

We’re looking for a Creative & Brand Lead to help scale and steward Biohub’s creative output. This role reports to the VP of Marketing & Operations within the Marketing & Communications organization and will work closely with the social media and product UX teams.

This role sits at the intersection of brand, content, and execution. You will guide creative work across internal teams and external partners, ensuring everything we produce is clear, high-quality, and aligned to our mission, while managing a small team of full-time and contract creatives.

This is not a pure concepting role. It is a role for someone who brings strong taste, exercises influence, and knows how to get great work out of agencies and collaborators working on complex, technical subject matter.

What You’ll Do

Creative & Content Leadership

• Guide the development of creative across key workstreams, including:

  • Technical / launch creative (in partnership with product UX and agencies)
  • Evergreen storytelling, including brand and campaigns

• Ensure all output meets a high bar for clarity, quality, and consistency

• Translate complex scientific and technical work into accessible creative direction

Brand Stewardship

• Uphold and evolve brand standards across channels and partners
• Provide clear, actionable feedback to ensure alignment with brand and voice
• Identify gaps and inconsistencies in how the brand shows up

Agency & Partner Management

• Lead day-to-day relationships with external creative and production agencies
• Set direction, review work, and ensure high-quality delivery
• Manage timelines, scopes, and expectations across multiple partners

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with teams across product, social, communication
• Navigate complex stakeholder environments with clarity and influence
• Align creative output with broader organizational priorities

Execution & Operations

• Drive work forward across multiple parallel initiatives
• Manage a small team of creatives
• Support a mix of agency-led and internally driven projectsHelp manage contractors and external contributors as needed

What You’ll Bring

• 8+ years of experience in brand/creative roles, preferably at a tech company, start up or agency
• 3+ years of management experience
• Strong experience working with and managing creative agencies
• Proven ability to guide and elevate creative work
• High creative standards and strong visual judgment
• Experience working with complex or technical subject matter
• Ability to operate in a cross-functional, stakeholder-heavy environment
• Comfort balancing strategy with hands‑on execution
• Strong communication and feedback skills

Compensation

The Redwood City, CA and New York, New York base pay range for a new hire in this role is $193,000 - $241,000. New hires are typically hired into the lower portion of the range, enabling employee growth in the range over time. Actual placement in range is based on job‑related skills and experience, as evaluated throughout the interview process.

This position may be eligible to participate in our discretionary annual performance bonus program. Bonus eligibility and targets are determined in accordance with our total rewards philosophy and may vary by role.

Better Together

As we grow, we’re excited to strengthen in‑person connections and cultivate a collaborative, team‑oriented environment. This role is a hybrid position requiring you to be onsite for at least 60% of the working month, approximately 3 days a week, with specific in‑office days determined by the team’s manager. The exact schedule will be at the hiring manager’s discretion and communicated during the interview process.

Benefits for the Whole You

We’re thankful to have an incredible team behind our work. To honor their commitment, we offer a wide range of benefits to support the people who make all we do possible.

• Provides a generous employer match on employee 401(k) contributions to support planning for the future.
• Paid time off to volunteer at an organization of your choice.
• Funding for select family‑forming benefits.
• Relocation support for employees who need assistance moving

If you’re interested in a role but your previous experience doesn’t perfectly align with each qualification in the job description, we still encourage you to apply as you may be the perfect fit for this or another role.

#LI-Hybrid