Creative Director

OVERALL DESCRIPTION:   

The Creative Director is World Food Program USA’s lead creative strategist and is responsible for leading and growing the organization’s creative and content strategy in support of a larger organizational brand strategy. This role will oversee a team of creatives to deliver highly engaging creative content and campaigns to raise awareness about global hunger and engage prospective and existing donors to support our mission. 

The role requires a brand growth background, both at a strategic and tactical level. This role is responsible for shaping how internal and external audiences experience World Food Program USA’s content across digital, events, partnerships, and donor touchpoints while also ensuring a consistent, compelling, and mission-driven emotional connection. This role will form strong partnerships and collaborate with internal teams and leaders across the organization.  

This position is a hybrid position located in Washington, DC. 

RESPONSIBILITIES: 

Leadership (35%) 

• Lead, coach and mentor a team of creatives and copywriters, steering them to become the ultimate brand ambassadors for the organization. 

• Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, inclusiveness, and continuous improvement to develop the team into a highly interconnected creative resource with performance-driven skillsets.  

• Collaborate with teams across the organization to execute multi-channel campaigns.  

• Build strong relationships with cross-functional partners across external affairs, social media and advertising, development, and policy teams. 

• Manage vendor relationships supporting brand and creative work.  

• Guide campaign planning, execution, measurement, and optimization.  

• Review and approve brand assets from creative team members to ensure quality and consistency 

• Establish and consistently measure KPIs related to brand health, awareness, engagement, and audience growth. Leverage this data to inform strategic recommendations and brand investment decisions. 

Brand Strategy & Management (30%) 

• Develop and execute a comprehensive creative content strategy aligned with the organization’s 5-year strategic plan. The creative content strategy will reinforce the brand’s core attributes by building inspirational and recognizable content experiences that are designed to grow over time. 

• Collaborate with external affairs, marketing, corporate, institutional/ foundations and celebrity partnerships to maximize brand visibility and brand growth across digital, social, events, collaborations, merchandise, and other physical activations.  

• Oversee the development and maintenance of comprehensive brand guidelines (logos, voice, tone, and visual style) to ensure brand compliance and consistency. 

• Work with World Food Programme counterparts on style and messaging consistency. 

• Conduct market research and audience analysis to identify potential brand growth opportunities. 

Design, Content and Tech (35%) 

• Oversee the development of story driven assets—and bring to life a robust creative content strategy and diverse portfolio of content for continued brand building, with a focus on building World Food Program USA’s inaugural YouTube strategy turning the channel into a human storytelling experience. 

• Be responsible for and oversee the writing and editing of content for internal/external communications vehicles across a wide range of high-quality communication materials including, and not limited to newsletters, emails, and print materials, such as the World Food Program USA Annual Report. 

• Collaborate with external affairs, co-lead cross-functional, multi-team creative brainstorms to drive audience interest, engagement, donor acquisition, and revenue generation.  

• Have knowledge of editorial and visual functions to oversee the creative studio. 

• Mentor team to produce high-quality, SEO- and GEO-optimized content for wfpusa.org, to increase website traffic, Share of Voice (SOV) content engagement and related fundraising conversions.  

• Mentor and lead team to design impactful interactive digital products (websites, digital media, video, etc.) using design best practices and tech platforms. Front end development/UX/UI experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP is highly preferred. 

• Oversee the content and multimedia library. 

• Other duties as assigned. 

A Well-Qualified Candidate Will Possess the Following:

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, business, public relations, design, or related field or equivalent. Master’s degree preferred. 
• 8–12+ years of experience in brand marketing, creative strategy, communications, or constituent experience. Must have 4+ years of managing and leading a diverse team of talent. 
• Passionate about building brands and deepening relationships with audiences, donors, and partner communities through the use of creative content.  
• Experience leading integrated marketing campaigns and creative strategy.  
• Strong project management and stakeholder management skills.  
• Demonstrated success managing creative teams and budgets.  
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.  
• Exceptional writing, grammar, and proofreading skills. 
• Highly organized self-starter, collaborative, efficient, and flexible. 
• Interest in humanitarian assistance, international development, or global hunger.