Head of Creative

Carnegie; United States; Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Carnegie is seeking a Head of Creative to set the division-wide creative standard across three studios—Concept Development, Content & Production, and Performance Creative. This player-coach role leads Studio Owners, ensures smooth handoffs, and aligns output with client expectations across the organization.

You will set narrative and visual standards, drive fast-moving multi-disciplinary work, and maintain a high bar for craft while guiding strategic business outcomes and efficiency gains,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, advertising, graphic design, fine arts, communications, or related field, or equivalent life/work experience
• 7+ years of creative leadership or multi-channel campaign experience
• Expert storytelling and multi-channel production skills
• Experience leading large teams and cross-functional collaboration
• Experience driving profitability through pricing, scoping, and staffing decisions
• Experience using AI-assisted tools to improve efficiency and output

Responsibilities

• Set the creative vision and quality bar for the division
• Lead Studio Owners and align cross-studio handoffs
• Oversee campaigns, launches, and cross-studio systems
• Coach and develop the creative team
• Build a culture of energy, ambition, and craft
• Protect the team from scope chaos and manage labor margins

Skills

Creative leadership

Brand marketing

Campaign development

Storytelling

Team leadership

AI tools

Executive branding

Communication

Time management

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Master’s degree welcome

Job description

About The Role

The Head of Creative sets the creative standard across three studios — Concept Development, Content & Production, and Performance Creative — and is accountable for how the work comes together across all of them. This is a player-coach role, and the play is division-wide. You lead the Studio Owners, who own craft and quality inside their own studios, while you own how the studios sync: where handoffs happen, where dependencies collide, and whether the combined output meets client expectations.

Search

Solutions

• Enrollment
• Student Success
• Branding
• Institutional Strategy
• Digital Advertising

Case Studies

• Rice University
• Ohio Wesleyan University
• The University of Mississippi
• Kettering University
• Florida Southern College
• University of Texas at Tyler
• See All

About The Role

The Head of Creative sets the creative standard across three studios — Concept Development, Content & Production, and Performance Creative — and is accountable for how the work comes together across all of them. This is a player-coach role, and the play is division-wide. You lead the Studio Owners, who own craft and quality inside their own studios, while you own how the studios sync: where handoffs happen, where dependencies collide, and whether the combined output meets client expectations.

You’ll set narrative and visual standards company-wide, lead a multi-disciplinary creative organization that moves fast and produces work that feels fresh, and hold the seams together where studio work integrates. Creative excellence matters here, and so does what it delivers for clients.

What You’ll Own

Creative Vision + Standards

• Set the creative vision and quality bar for the division, building in each Studio Owner’s craft standards
• Own the framework used to evaluate creative output across all three studios, so creative excellence means the same thing everywhere
• Serve as the company’s single point of accountability on creative — client expectations, market shifts, and cross-studio handoffs
• Oversee campaigns, launches, and creative systems that span more than one studio
• Put AI-assisted creative tools and emerging tech to work to improve speed and quality of output

Multi-Craft Leadership + Mentorship

• Lead the three creative craft lanes — Concept Development, Content & Production, Performance Creative — and hold them to the standards above
• Resolve conflicts, handoffs, and dependencies between studios
• Keep storytelling, design, and campaign deployment under one creative authority instead of competing silos
• Coach and develop the creative team, setting the bar for craft and cross-functional collaboration
• Build a culture of energy, ambition, and craft that Studio Owners carry into their own teams
• Protect the team from scope chaos and hold the line on labor margins

Business Strategy + Cross-Discipline Partnership

• Own creative margin performance across the division
• Design systems and workflows — including AI-assisted ones — that address efficiency and capacity pressure
• Work with brand strategy and research leadership to refine the systems to turn positioning and audience insight into briefs the team can build from
• Partner with digital experience and web teams so brand systems carry cleanly into digital environments
• Coordinate with paid media and activation teams so campaign systems scale across audiences and platforms
• Act as a senior creative voice in high‑stakes client presentations, new business pitches, and scope development

Team Management

• Lead, coach, and develop the creative team to foster high performance and professional growth
• Set clear expectations, provide ongoing feedback, and deliver timely performance evaluationsBuild a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Identify development opportunities and support team members in reaching their career goals

What You Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, advertising, graphic design, fine arts, communications, or a related field, or equivalent life/work experience
• Master’s degree (MFA/MBA) welcome, but a proven portfolio and track record leading teams matter most
• 7+ years of creative leadership, brand marketing, or multi-channel campaign development experience
• Expert-level storytelling, campaign architecture, and multi-channel production skills, applied to large creative teams and agency-wide initiatives
• Track record of pulling design, copy, video, digital, and social into one cohesive operating model
• Experience diagnosing and improving team-level profitability — pricing, scoping, staffing mix — not just maintaining a margin that’s already healthy
• Experience driving efficiency and capacity through process and technology, including AI-assisted tools, as an alternative to headcount growth, particularly for teams under sustained workload pressure
• Executive-level knowledge of brand management and integrated marketing strategy, and how creative output connects to business priorities and customer experience
• Ability to energize creative teams and raise craft standards in a fast‑paced, pragmatic agency environment
• Strong communication and time-management skills, along with comfort switching between multiple technology platforms, given the remote environment
• Ability to sit at a desk and work on a computer for extended periods

Why This Role

Creative is a value multiplier at Carnegie, and this is the person who makes sure three strong studios add up to one coherent creative organization. You’ll have final say on how work comes together across studios, three Studio Owners to lead and hold to a shared bar, and room to decide how AI and new ways of working reshape the division’s capacity and speed. Whoever takes this on owns both the work that reaches clients and the business behind it — margin, efficiency, and how well the whole division runs, not just how good any one piece of it looks.

Compensation

The salary range for this role is $170,000–$200,000. Your offer will reflect the experience, skills, and qualifications you bring.

About Carnegie

For more than 30 years, Carnegie has been a leader and innovator in higher education marketing and enrollment strategy, offering groundbreaking services in the areas of Research, Strategy, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Slate Optimization, Student Search, Website Development, and Creative that generate authentic connections.

Learn more about who we are, what we do, and what we care about.

No phone calls or unscheduled visits to the office, please. Carnegie is an equal-opportunity employer.