Executive Director, Global Image & Social - MAC

Estée Lauder Companies; New York (NY); On-site; USD 182,000 - 314,000; Full time

Job summary

Estée Lauder Companies seeks an Executive Director, Image & Social to translate global creative vision into grounded, high‑impact work across campaigns, social, and content ecosystems. You will lead the Image and Social teams, mentoring talent and ensuring brand consistency and cultural relevance in every asset.

The role demands extensive experience in beauty/luxury branding, executive collaboration, and hands‑on creative excellence from concept through production and delivery.

Qualifications

• BA or BFA required for senior creative leadership roles.
• 13+ years of experience in a senior creative, image, social, content, or brand leadership role.
• Minimum 3–4 years of direct management of a full creative team.
• Strong background in beauty, fashion, luxury, or image‑driven brands.
• Proven ability to lead across image, social, video, campaigns, and content.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute global creative concepts across Image, Campaigns, Social, and content ecosystems.
• Translate the VP’s vision into clear direction for the team and priorities.
• Ensure work is elevated, on-brand, and culturally relevant across touchpoints.
• Provide creative guidance across photography, video, social content, and assets.
• Lead the Image and Social teams and mentor members for development.

Skills

Senior leadership

Creative direction

Cross-functional collaboration

Brand storytelling

People management

Education

BA or BFA

Tools

Adobe Creative Suite

PowerPoint

Keynote

Job description

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is one of the world’s leading manufacturers, marketers, and sellers of quality skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products, and is a steward of luxury and prestige brands globally. The company’s products are sold in approximately 150 countries and territories under brand names including: Estée Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, M·A·C, La Mer, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin Paris, TOM FORD, Smashbox, AERIN Beauty, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, GLAMGLOW, KILIAN PARIS, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, the DECIEM family of brands, including The Ordinary and NIOD, and BALMAIN Beauty.

Summary

The Executive Director, Image & Social reports to the VP, Global Creative and will partner closely with them to help lead the day-to-day vision, management, and execution across M·A·C’s global Image and Social creative teams. This role is responsible for helping translate the global creative vision into strong, consistent, and culturally relevant work across campaigns, image, social content, video, creator-led storytelling, and social-first brand moments. The ideal candidate is both highly creative and highly operational, someone who can push ideas forward, manage teams, protect creative quality, and make sure work moves smoothly from concept through execution. This person will help shape the brand’s image across all major touchpoints, while also leading how that image comes to life through social cadence, platform storytelling, campaign rollouts, and always-on content. They must be able to lead with taste, clarity, urgency, and confidence, while keeping the team focused, organized, and inspired.

Key Responsibilities

Creative Leadership

• Partner closely with the VP, Global Creative to develop and execute global creative concepts across Image, Campaigns, Social, and content ecosystems.
• Help translate the VP’s creative vision into clear direction for the team, making sure everyone understands the priorities, next steps, and creative expectations.
• Ensure all creative output feels elevated, ownable to M·A·C, culturally relevant, and consistent across global touchpoints.
• Provide creative guidance across photography, video, social content, campaign assets, post‑production, and final delivery.
• Push for bold, modern, and brand-defining creative ideas while protecting the integrity of the brand.

Social Cadence & Programming

• Oversee the creative direction and cadence for M·A·C’s global social presence, ensuring social content feels consistent, platform‑right, and brand‑defining.
• Help build a clear social programming rhythm across campaign launches, always‑on content, evergreen storytelling, artistry, education, trend moments, creator content, and community‑driven ideas.
• Partner with Social, Marketing, PR, Consumer Engagement, Artistry, and regional teams to ensure social storytelling supports both brand priorities and consumer relevance.
• Guide how campaigns and product launches are translated into social ecosystems, including teasers, launch moments, creator extensions, short‑form video, stills, motion, and ongoing content.
• Ensure the social calendar has a clear cadence, with the right balance of planned campaign content, real‑time opportunities, trend response, education, artistry, and brand‑building moments.
• Help create stronger systems for social reviews, content planning, approvals, and asset readiness so social work moves quickly without losing creative quality.
• Ensure social concepts are platform‑specific, culturally aware, and reflective of how beauty consumers engage with content today.

Execution & Creative Excellence

• Oversee the creative process from concept through production, post‑production, delivery, and final asset handoff.
• Ensure creative quality and consistency across campaigns, image, social, in‑store, experiential, events, education, video, and emerging social formats.
• Partner with Creative Operations, Production, Post‑Production, and external partners to ensure timelines, budgets, asset needs, and deliverables are managed properly.
• Maintain a high level of attention to detail across all final creative, including layouts, crops, edits, retouching, motion, storytelling, social edits, and presentation materials.
• Help create stronger systems for approvals, reviews, and asset organization so feedback does not get lost.

Key Responsibilities Continued

Cross‑Functional & Global Partnership

• Work closely with Marketing, Product Development, Consumer Engagement, PR, Regions, Store Design, Visual Merchandising, Education, Artistry, and Social to ensure creative direction is aligned and actionable.
• Present creative concepts and updates to senior leadership and cross‑functional partners when needed.
• Provide clear guidance to regional teams on how to adapt global creative while maintaining brand consistency.
• Balance global creative consistency with cultural nuance and local market needs.
• Serve as a trusted partner who can manage up, down, and across the organization with clarity and confidence.

External Partnerships

• Help identify, brief, and manage external creative talent, agencies, creators, photographers, directors, editors, retouchers, and production partners when needed.
• Ensure external collaborators understand the brand vision, creative expectations, and deliverables.
• Maintain strong creative standards across all externally produced work.

Image & Social Team Management

• Lead and manage the Image and Social creative teams day to day, ensuring priorities, timelines, and responsibilities are clear.
• Must have proven experience managing a full team of direct reports, including day‑to‑day workload, prioritization, performance feedback, and team development.
• Act as the main bridge between the VP, Global Creative and the wider creative team, helping streamline communication and decision‑making.
• Review work at key stages and help guide the team before creative is elevated for final approval.
• Mentor, develop, and support team members, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, creativity, and high standards.
• Help identify team needs, resourcing gaps, and ways of working that can improve efficiency and creative output.

POSITION REQUIREMENTS

• BA or BFA required.
• 13+ years of experience in a senior creative, image, social, content, or brand leadership role.
• Minimum 3-4 years of experience directly managing a full creative team, including direct reports, workload management, performance feedback, and team development.
• Strong background in beauty, fashion, luxury, culture, or a highly image‑driven brand environment.
• Proven ability to lead multidisciplinary creative teams across image, social, video, campaign, and content work.
• Strong taste level and understanding of modern image‑making, social storytelling, creator ecosystems, platform behavior, and emerging social formats.
• Strong understanding of audience development, social platform behavior, content cadence, and how engagement patterns inform both creative direction and always‑on social planning.
• Experience managing creative from concept through production, post‑production, and final delivery.
• Strong understanding of social cadence, content planning, campaign rollout, and always‑on programming.
• Highly organized, proactive, detail‑oriented, and comfortable managing multiple projects at once.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to translate creative direction into clear action for teams and partners.
• Ability to work in a fast‑paced environment with shifting priorities, tight timelines, and high creative standards.
• Strong understanding of Adobe Creative Suite and presentation tools including Keynote and PowerPoint.
• Must be a strong team leader, creative partner, and trusted partner to senior creative leadership.

Pay Range

The anticipated base salary range for this position is $182,450.00 to $313,650.00. Exact salary depends on several factors such as experience, skills, education, and budget. Salary range may vary based on geographic location. In addition to base salary, this position is eligible for participation in a highly competitive bonus program as well as participation in the share incentive plan. In addition, This Estée Lauder Companies offers a variety of benefits to eligible employees, including health insurance coverage (medical, dental, and vision insurance), wellness and family support programs, life and disability insurance, retirement savings plans, paid leave programs, education‑related programs, paid holidays and vacation time, and many others. Many of these benefits are subsidized or fully paid for by the company.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is Company's policy not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions), gender identity or gender expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, physical or mental disability, protected medical condition as defined by applicable state or local law, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws and ordinances. The Company will endeavor to provide a reasonable accommodation consistent with the law to otherwise qualified employees and prospective employees with a disability and to employees and prospective employees with needs related to their religious observance or practices.

Michigan Applicants

Persons with disabilities needing accommodations for employment must notify the company in writing of the need for an accommodation within 182 days after the date the person with a disability knew or reasonably should have known that an accommodation was needed.

Philadelphia Applicants

Philadelphia's Fair Chance Hiring Law

Rhode Island Applicants

The company is subject to chapters 29-38 of title 28 of the general laws of Rhode Island and is therefore covered by the state's workers’ compensation law.