Deputy Director, Global Brand Experience

Gates Foundation; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 213,000 - 330,000; Full time

Job summary

Gates Foundation is seeking a Deputy Director, Global Brand Experience to lead the Foundation’s brand, creative direction, visual identity, and storytelling ecosystem on a global scale. You will guide a multidisciplinary creative studio, set strategic vision, and elevate craft across campaigns, exhibitions, and experiences that connect audiences to our mission.

You will partner with regional teams, drive audience-centered design, and steward brand systems while ensuring work remains culturally

Job description

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

The Communications Division, led by the Chief Communications Officer, oversees the foundation’s global communications strategy. The division brings together internal and external communications to advance the foundation’s mission to create a more equitable world.

This role sits within the Global Content & Campaigns team, which leads the foundation's public engagement strategy by bringing together brand, campaigns, creative production, storytelling, channels, and audience engagement to build trust in the foundation and inspire more people to care about our mission. Working closely with regional communications teams and partners around the world, the team ensures the foundation's communications are audience‑centered, creatively ambitious, and grounded in evidence, continually testing and evolving approaches that strengthen public trust and engagement.

Your Role

The Deputy Director, Global Brand Experience is responsible for how Gates Foundation brand and stories are expressed to external audiences.

Reporting to the Director of Content & Campaigns, this role leads the Foundation's global brand, creative direction, visual identity, storytelling ecosystem, and creative production—ensuring every public interaction with the Foundation builds trust, inspires care, and reinforces our belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to live a healthy life and reach their full potential.

The Deputy Director leads a multidisciplinary creative studio, bringing together creative producers, story developer, visual and experiential designers, and audience engagement specialists who design, produce, and activate the Foundation's public‑facing stories, exhibits, and experiences. The role is responsible for setting the team's creative vision, growing its capabilities, and ensuring every discipline works together to create cohesive, audience‑centered experiences that connect people emotionally to the Foundation's mission.

The Deputy Director serves as both a strategic brand leader and the Communications Division's senior creative leader—setting the creative vision for the Foundation's public brand, elevating design excellence, and ensuring every experience reflects the highest standards of craft.

Working across regional communications, campaigns, channels, advocacy, leadership communications, and external partners, this role helps translate the Foundation's mission into experiences that people remember, trust, and want to share.

This role is anticipated to travel up to 25% domestic and international.

What You’ll Do

Lead Creative Direction & Design Excellence

• Serve as the Communications Division's senior creative leader, establishing a compelling creative vision for how the Foundation's brand is expressed across every audience touchpoint.
• Provide executive creative direction across campaigns, storytelling, digital experiences, exhibitions, activations, environmental design, and emerging brand experiences.
• Champion exceptional visual craft and design quality, ensuring all work reflects world‑class standards of creativity, accessibility, and audience‑centered design.
• Steward the Foundation's visual identity and creative expression while encouraging thoughtful innovation that keeps the brand culturally relevant.

Build Creative Excellence & Organizational Capability

• Lead and develop a multidisciplinary team of creative producers, story developers, and visual and experiential designers responsible for creating and delivering world‑class creative work across the Foundation's stories, brand experiences, exhibitions, activations, and communications.
• Lead creative excellence across the full creative lifecycle—from ideation and creative development through design, production, and execution—ensuring every output reflects exceptional strategic thinking, craft, audience relevance, and brand quality.
• Build long‑term internal creative capability by strengthening creative leadership, design judgment, storytelling, production expertise, and multidisciplinary collaboration across the team.
• Foster a culture of creative excellence through rigorous critique, continuous learning, experimentation, and operating models that enable consistently outstanding creative work.

Champion the Global Brand Strategy

• Steward the Foundation's brand positioning, creative platform, audience strategy, and brand architecture across all public communications.
• Lead the continued evolution and implementation of the Gates Foundation's global brand strategy to build trust, increase care for our mission, and strengthen public understanding of who we are and why we do our work.
• Ensure all brand expression reflects the Foundation's values of collaboration, optimism, innovation, rigor and inclusion while remaining locally relevant across markets.
• Serve as the principal advisor to Communications Division leadership on brand strategy, governance, and evolution.

Lead Brand Systems & Visual Design

• Lead the ongoing evolution of the Foundation's visual design system across physical, environmental, graphic, motion, digital, and experiential applications.
• Ensure consistent, high‑quality implementation of brand standards while enabling regional adaptation and creative flexibility.
• Oversee development of scalable design systems, templates, creative resources, and brand governance that enable excellence across the Communications Division.
• Guide the evolution of photography, illustration, typography, motion, environmental graphics, exhibitions, and visual storytelling standards.

Lead Story Development & Creative Production

• Lead the strategy, prioritization, and production of creative content supporting integrated campaigns, owned channels, leadership communications, regional teams, and brand initiatives.
• Champion and support your team in identifying human‑centered stories capable of supporting multiple campaigns and channels.
• Oversee production of creative content across video, photography, editorial, design, social content, interactive experiences, and emerging media.
• Ensure creative investments maximize long‑term value through scalable production, cross‑market adaptation, and reusable storytelling assets.

Lead Brand Experiences & Public Engagement

• Lead strategy, creative direction and production for physical and digital brand experiences, installations, activations, including the Gates Foundation’s Discovery Center.
• Ensure audience experiences are designed holistically across physical, digital and social channels.
• Drive innovation in how the Foundation participates in culture, public conversations, and major moments.

Drive Audience‑Centered Innovation

• Apply audience insights, behavioral research, and performance data to improve creative strategy and audience engagement.
• Identify emerging cultural trends, creators, technologies, and platforms that create new opportunities to reach broader audiences.
• Champion experimentation with new storytelling formats, creator partnerships, experiential models, and digital products.

Your Experience

• 12+ years leading brand, creative, and design within global nonprofits, media companies, agencies, technology firms, consumer brands, or mission‑driven organizations.
• Demonstrated success leading multidisciplinary creative teams spanning brand strategy, visual design, storytelling, creative production, experiential design, and content development.
• Deep expertise in brand visual systems, creative governance, and design leadership across digital, physical, environmental, and experiential applications.
• Exceptional creative judgment with the ability to evaluate, critique, and elevate design work across multiple disciplines.
• Experience establishing creative vision while empowering teams and partners to deliver outstanding work.
• Proven ability to mentor and grow designers, storytellers, producers, and creative leaders.
• Experience commissioning, directing, and managing world‑class creative agencies, design consultancies, exhibit designers, filmmakers, photographers, and other specialist partners.
• Experience planning and managing a complex creative budget.
• Strong understanding of audience‑centered design, behavioral insights, storytelling, and experience design.
• Demonstrated success leading large, cross‑functional initiatives within highly matrixed global organizations.
• Passion for building brands that create emotional connection, strengthen trust, and inspire public engagement around important social issues.

The salary range for this role is $212,800 to $329,800 USD. We recognize high‑wage market differences in Seattle and Washington D.C., where our offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $234,000 to $362,800 USD. As a mission‑driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hires salaries are typically between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job‑related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

Must have unrestricted work authorization in the country where this position is located. The Foundation does not provide immigration‑related sponsorship for this role. This includes direct company sponsorship and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (eg: H-1B, O-1, L-1, E, OPT, STEM-OPT, CPT, TN, J‑1, etc.).

Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

We’re committed to providing an inclusive and accessible hiring experience for all candidates. If you have a disability or medical condition and need an accommodation at any stage of the application or interview process—such as an ASL interpreter, alternative interview format, or physical accessibility support—we’re happy to help. Please contact [e-mail] with the position number and a brief description of your accommodation needs. Requests will be handled confidentially.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.