Creative Director

POSITION OVERVIEW

The Creative Director is World Food Program USA’s lead creative strategist and is responsible for leading and growing the organization’s creative vision 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 you to be a creative visionary to provide artistic direction and to lead brand growth efforts, both at a strategic and tactical level. This role is responsible for the creation of multimedia assets to help shape how internal and external audiences experience World Food Program USA’s brand through multimedia content that engages audiences and converts non engaged audiences into donors. The portfolio will be delivered across digital, print, events, co-branded partnerships, and donor touchpoints while also ensuring a consistent, compelling, and mission-driven emotional connection through ethical humanitarian storytelling. This role will form strong internal partnerships and collaborate with teams and leaders across the organization. The candidate must have experience creating content that drives giving, not just awareness, and using performance data (conversion, cost per donor, A/B tests) for continuous improvement.

• Oversee the development of story driven assets—and bring to life a robust creative content strategy and diverse portfolio of multimedia content for continued brand building.
• Work alongside the digital marketing, brand experience, and storytelling teams on building World Food Program USA’s inaugural YouTube strategy turning the channel into a human storytelling experience.
• In collaboration with external affairs, co-lead cross-functional, multi-team creative brainstorms to drive audience interest, engagement, donor acquisition, and revenue generation.
• IMentor and lead team to design impactful interactive digital products (websites, digital media, short form video, etc.) and select print products. The creative director is a hands-on leader that will create and mentor using designer best practices and tech platforms. Front end development/UX/UI experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP is highly preferred.
• Oversee the continent and multimedia library.

• Develop and execute a comprehensive multimedia content strategy aligned with the organization’s 5-year strategic plan. The multimedia content strategy will reinforce the brand’s core attributes by building inspirational and recognizable experiences that are designed to grow over time and will help to convert audiences to one-time donors through emotional connection.
• 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 evolution, 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 and brand experience team on style and messaging consistency.
• Conduct market research and audience analysis to identify potential brand growth opportunities.

• Lead, coach, and mentor a team of creatives, steering them to become best in class designers and 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. Lead the team to develop assets that will turn prospects into donors essentially turning the creative team into creative fundraisers.
• Collaborate with teams across the organization to execute multi-channel campaigns.
• Build strong relationships with cross-functional partners across external affairs, brand experience, celebrity, social media and advertising, development, and policy teams. 
• Managing creative budgets, vendor relationships, timelines and multiple campaigns at once.
• Collaborate with brand experience and storytelling teams to 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 date to inform strategic recommendations and brand investment decisions.  

A Well-Qualified Candidate Will Possess the Following:

• Bachelor’s degree in graphic design, visual communication, fine arts, advertising, film or media production, communications, marketing or related field, or equivalent professional experience. M.F.A. degree preferred.
• A strong portfolio showing creative leadership across brand campaign and multimedia work is required.
• Have knowledge of editorial, storytelling, and visual functions to oversee the creative studio.
• Training or certification in motion design, video production or digital and social content
• Proven track record of producing high-quality work in-house, plus managing agencies, freelancers, and pro bono partners.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled creative tools and workflows and understand when and when not to use AI.
• 8–12+ years in brand marketing, creative strategy or donor/audience experience, including at least 4 years managing and developing creative teams. A passion for building brands and using creative content to deepen relationships with audiences, donors and partners.
• 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.
• Other duties as assigned.