Head of Creative

Carnegie; Westford (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Carnegie is seeking a Head of Creative to set the creative standard across three studios—Concept Development, Content & Production, and Performance Creative. This player-coach role leads Studio Owners and ensures smooth handoffs, aligned craft, and client-driven outcomes in a division-wide capacity.

You will shepherd creative margins, drive systems and AI-enabled workflows, and partner with brand and research leaders to translate audience insights into actionable briefs, while representing the

Qualifications

• 7+ years of creative leadership and multi-channel campaign experience.
• Proven ability to lead three studios and align output with client expectations.
• Strong storytelling, campaign architecture, and production skills.
• Experience driving efficiency through process and AI tools.
• Executive-level knowledge of brand management and integrated marketing.

Responsibilities

• Lead the three creative craft lanes and hold them to the standards above.
• Oversee cross-studio handoffs, dependencies, and client-facing outputs.
• Coach and develop the creative team, ensuring high performance and growth.
• Build a culture of energy, ambition, and craft across studios.
• Protect team margins and manage scope chaos.

Skills

Leadership

Storytelling

Campaign development

Brand management

AI-assisted tools

Communication

Time management

Client presentations

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree welcome

Tools

AI tools

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.

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• 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.

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 studiosKeep 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 evaluations
• Build 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.

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.