Executive Creative Director

HoneyBook is the leading clientflow management platform that makes it easy for independent business owners to sell and deliver their services online. Offering powerful tools for communication, contracts, invoicing, payments, and more, the platform puts independent professionals in control of their process and client experience. HoneyBook is trusted by over 100,000 service-based businesses in the United States and Canada that have booked more than $12 billion in business on the platform.

Our culture is built on five core values that inform everything we do. We encourage collaboration, feedback, ownership and have a growth mindset. We know experience comes in many different forms, some visible on your resume, others not. No one candidate will be a 100% perfect match to our description, so if you thrive in a fast-paced, intellectually-charged environment and have similar experience to what we are looking for, we encourage you to apply.

About the role: 

In order to bring HoneyBook into this next chapter, we need an experienced, innovative, and agile Executive Creative Director and people manager who is excited to inspire and generate cross-media experiences and user-centered design systems that are aesthetically compelling, measurably functional, and built to position storytelling at the core. At the center of this role’s day-to-day is creative leadership. You’ll manage, direct, and empower the team members responsible for designing brand experiences on behalf of HoneyBook. You’ll work at all times to ensure the relevance, excellence, and originality of content and experiences designed for a range of outputs and platforms — from client-owned channels to mass media. Crucially, the ECD will also play a strategic role in shaping the marketing creative department as a whole. Working in lock-step with the CMO, and collaboratively with peers across other disciplines and HoneyBook leadership, you’ll look beyond the everyday deliverables to consider new opportunities both internally and externally — whether that might be following up on a potential partnership or nurturing an emerging skill set in a young designer. 

As the Executive Creative Director at HoneyBook, you’ll be responsible for defining, articulating and executing HoneyBook’s creative strategy, direction, and goals for various work streams across brand, product marketing, performance marketing, and integrated campaigns. You can explain the “whys' ' behind decisions, are open to being wrong, are willing to be hands-on when needed, and can represent your POV with conviction. You’ll be the driving force behind our brand's visual and creative storytelling, ensuring all creative efforts support and enhance our brand's identity and business goals. 

This role will require you to be in our San Francisco office 2-3 days per week (the current expectation is Wednesdays & Thursdays). 

Here are a few of the things you will work on:

• Strategic Vision: you’ll develop and implement an overall creative strategy that aligns with HoneyBook’s brand and business objectives; shape presentations that effectively articulate, document, and convey the concept and logic underlying a proposed creative strategy.
• Product Partnership: Be a strategic partner to product and product design teams, guide the in-product brand vision and paint the product story out in the market; invest in relationships in order to build trust.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner deeply with various teams to ensure cohesive brand and creative visions including: education, community, people, partnerships, business development and growth; you’ll balance the needs of stakeholders and define opportunities to bring ideas to life.
• Budget Oversight: you’ll manage project budgets and resourcing, always seeking to derive value and excellence from finite resourcing.
• Creative Direction: you’ll define and oversee all marketing creative projects (awareness, acquisition, and product marketing) from concept to completion, ensuring high-quality output, and providing clear, constructive feedback to creative team members and external partners along the way; create, influence, and sustain a culture of excellence as a beloved leader with a sense of drive and passion.
• Hiring: you’ll collaborate with the CMO to scale the team by determining strategic hiring needs, interviewing candidates, and training new hires to integrate into a healthy and motivating team dynamic.
• Leadership and Management: you'll inspire, mentor, and motivate a diverse creative team that includes designers, copywriters, producers, and art directors; foster an inclusive, collaborative, and innovative work environment, and encourage team members to explore new ideas and creative solutions.
• Leverage metrics: you’ll understand and evolve the creative based on performance metrics. You’ll develop a deep understanding of HoneyBook’s business and customer funnel and how our creative can flex based on where each member is in their journey.
• Brand Development: you’ll maintain and evolve our brand identity, ensuring consistency across all channels and touchpoints. You’ll collaborate with marketing and product teams to create integrated campaigns that drive brand awareness and acquisition.
• Innovation and Trends: you’ll stay current with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in design and marketing. You’ll introduce innovative approaches and new technologies to enhance the creative process and deliver award-winning and cutting-edge work.

Here is what we’re looking for in a candidate: 

• A background in working with SMB or consumer brands, products or markets where you worked to understand social trends and movements
• A love for the craft of brand storytelling and advertising, in all forms—all standing on a solid, fundamental foundation: great design
• Experience leading the development of integrated marketing campaigns and performance marketing assets—from concept to execution
• Experience with awareness and brand-based marketing strategies and trends in culture and the creative industry
• Experience in a people-management role on creative teams, with the ability to build out departments and coordinate, direct, and provide creative direction to contractors, agencies, and in-house multi-disciplinary creatives
• Storytelling capabilities across several formats and strong conceptual thinking: defining scalable brand design systems. Whether it’s typography, photography, grid systems, or color, you draw inspiration from a wide range of creative outlets and bring that to your daily work
• You’ve developed award-winning work 

Here is what is needed:

• 15+ years experience working in a tech, design, or marketing environment, with a majority of those years devoted to leading creative direction for large-scale global brands, with 5+ years being in-house experience
• Demonstrated fluency with design tools, including the full suite of Adobe Creative Cloud and Figma; competency working in Keynote and G Suite products, experience directing video, animations, and motion graphics is a plus
• Excellent presentation, interpersonal, and communication skills, with the ability to communicate complex, sometimes abstract, concepts clearly and persuasively
• Highly collaborative, organized, and resourceful. A self-starter who proactively sets benchmarks and aligns expectations
• A trained eye for aesthetics, who is also analytical, operationally oriented, and metrics driven
• Experience leading internal and external teams, including creative agencies
• Existing relationships with world-class agencies, freelancers, and vendors
• Strong knowledge of design principles related to branding, product, marketing, and publishing (blog) with understanding of UX design, UI component development, digital product design, information hierarchy, user-flow, and typography
• Up to date on the latest best practices for web design, responsive grid systems, Google Material Design, CSS and JavaScript capabilities, and experience setting up brand design systems that are appropriate for digital / product

The good stuff:

• Mission-driven: You'll be joining more than just another startup. Our members’ success is at the heart of everything we do.
• Impact: We move quickly and encourage every employee to push the envelope. Our best ideas come from out-of-the-box thinking and innovation; be ready to fail fast and often!
• Compensation: We offer a competitive salary and meaningful equity grants.
  • Base pay: $216-$260k, depending on skills and experience
• Benefits & perks: From wellness programs to exceptional family leave policies, the health and happiness of our employees are foremost.

Our core values:

• People come first: We prioritize people as we explore opportunities and work through challenges.
• Raise the bar: We push for greatness—for ourselves, each other, and our members.
• Own it: Trust and ownership let us make decisions with confidence.
• We love what we do: We bring passion to our work and love what we create for our members.
• Keep it real: Authenticity, respect, and transparency are at our core.

The opportunity at HoneyBook is huge – our primary customers today are independents, who generate in aggregate $150B in revenue per year in the US. Founded in 2013, HoneyBook is based in San Francisco and Tel Aviv, has raised $498M, and is funded by Tiger Global Management, Norwest Venture Partners, Aleph, Hillsven Capital, OurCrowd, Durable Capital Partners LP, Vintage Investment Partners, Battery Ventures, Citi Ventures, Zeev Ventures, and 01 Advisors.

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