We're looking for a sharp, ambitious creative ready to take their next big step. As Creative Director (Design) at EF Educational Tours, you'll be a hands-on force in shaping the visual identity and creative output of two beloved student travel brands — EF Explore America and EF Educational Tours. This isn't a role where you manage from a distance. You'll be in it: concepting, crafting, and setting the creative pace for the team around you.
You’re a digital native who can move easily between mediums — web, social, email, and print included. You’re excited to explore how AI can enhance departmental efficiency and unlock even more space for human creativity. You’ll partner closely with our Creative Director (Content) to help the team bring ideas to life that show the real, lasting impact travel has on students, teachers, families, and communities.
You're a strategist who knows how to take a brief, find the story, and transform it into something people actually feel. You thrive in scrappy, fast-moving environments where your fingerprints are all over the work and you're proud of that.
All candidates must submit a portfolio to be considered.
In this role, you will:
Lead by doing: Carry the creative vision with confidence while staying deeply embedded in the work itself — designing, reviewing, and raising the bar through your own output.
Shape the brand: Drive the evolution of our visual system across channels with intention, craft, and consistency, always ensuring every touchpoint reflects who we are and where we're going.
Translate strategy into creative: Partner with stakeholders across Sales, Product and Service to take a strategic brief and turn it into bold, measurable creative work. You're comfortable in the room with senior leaders and know how to present ideas with conviction.
Champion fresh thinking: Stay ahead of digital trends, emerging tools, and cultural moments to keep our creative output sharp, relevant, and distinctly ours.
Mentor and elevate: Be a genuine leader to the design team. Be someone who invests in their growth, gives real feedback, and builds a culture of curiosity and high craft. You've led people before and are the person that people naturally turn to.
Execute with care: Oversee campaign and promotional materials like print, digital, social, and beyond with a close eye on quality and deadlines.
Spread the word: Champion the value of smart, intentional creative across the organization — in small team settings and larger forums alike.
You are:
Hungry and ready: You have 12 to 15 years of design experience with demonstrated success with leading or mentoring others — and you're excited to grow that part of your career.
Digitally fluent: You think digital-first. You understand how creative performs across platforms, and you design with that in mind.
Results-driven: You have a jaw-dropping portfolio showing your ability to connect creative work to real results that drive business impact.
A strong communicator and collaborator: You work well with others, communicate your ideas clearly, and know how to bring stakeholders along on a creative journey.
Plugged in: You have what we like to call fingerspitzengefühl — you keep your finger on the pulse of visual communication trends, emerging technologies, and what's next in digital creative.
Why you’ll love working here: Perks, Benefits, and more!
This is the most fun, high caliber place you’ll ever work. Ask any employee why they love EF (whether they’ve been here 10 minutes or 10 years) and they’ll probably tell you the same thing: it’s the people. When you work at EF, you join a purpose-driven, international and energetic community that thrives on continuous learning, fearless innovation and mutual support.
In addition, you can expect:
Commitment to professional growth: robust monthly calendar of trainings and workshops
Four weeks paid vacation your first year, ten paid holidays, and two floating holidays
Exciting business travel opportunities
25% company match on your 401(k) contributions
Market-leading medical, dental and vision coverage, along with options for life and disability insurance, accident and hospital insurance, legal and pet insurance
Dependent care, healthcare and commuter Flex Spending Accounts (FSAs)
Access to fertility care and family-building support
Wellness benefits including a yearly fitness reimbursement
Frequent social and learning events, including access to our employee-run resource groups
Robust Employee Assistance Program
Tenure-based sabbatical eligibility
EF Product Discounts (discounts on travel, international language schools, Au Pair program and more)
Discounts at local venues and businesses
Amazing offices designed to match the caliber of the people who work there, plus the flexibility of working from home one day a week.
Compensation range for this role is $125,000-$160,000/year, based on experience.
Skills Required
- Submit a portfolio
- 12 to 15 years of design experience with leadership or mentoring experience
- Hands-on design across web, social, email, and print
- Digital-first design fluency and understanding of creative performance across platforms
- Proven ability to translate strategic briefs into creative that drives business results
- Experience presenting ideas and working with senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders
- Proven people leadership and mentorship skills; has led design teams before
- Keeps current with visual trends, emerging tools, and AI to inform creative work
What We Do
A career at EF is something different. You’ll think boldly, own your job, and create a career you are proud of—and have fun doing it. When you join EF, you will join a global community of creative minds, innovators, and change-makers. Since 1965, we've created programs that help people see new places, experience new cultures, and learn about the world and themselves. People are at the heart of everything we do, and it all begins with the talented and collaborative EFers who bring our mission-opening the world through education- to life across 55 countries and counting.
