Director, Creative

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California.

📋 Description

• Develop the brand from the ground up: Participate in creating name architecture, voice, visual identity, and narrative systems for a category-defining launch, ensuring that every product, series, and campaign is treated with the importance it deserves.

• Oversee Brand Strategy to Advertising: Implement a structured brand strategy framework (purpose, positioning, personality, promise) to guide direction, then apply thought-provoking concepts to campaign ideas — initiatives designed to evoke reactions, not merely impressions.

• Collaborate and Report to the CMO: Integrate brand strategy and creative insights into go-to-market strategies at the leadership level, rather than just focusing on execution.

• Establish the Visual Language: Create and uphold a distinctive brand design system grounded in the brand strategy and narrative, ensuring memorable impact rather than mere decoration; this design language should be intuitive enough for a growing team to extend and evolve without losing its essence.

• Lead All Creative Execution: Oversee website content, product marketing, sales collateral, social media, video, and merchandise, working closely with the Director of AI & Web Strategy and Events to manage how the brand is represented across all channels.

• Direct Event Branding: Collaborate with the marketing and events team on conference appearances, launch experiences, and internal cultural moments, from concept to production.

• Convert Technical Topics into Human Stakes: Frame cybersecurity as a human narrative of risk, disruption, and recovery, rather than just listing features; anti-threat stories (AI or otherwise) should be structured around recovery arcs, not fear-based technical jargon.

• Manage Brand Digital Assets and Image Library: Organize and maintain it as a dynamic resource that the team can actively utilize, rather than a disconnected archive that is hard to navigate.

• Collaborate with Product & Engineering Design: Provide clear specifications and assets for execution fidelity in product and web projects to ensure that what is delivered aligns with the original design intent and objectives.

• Build Creative Network and Operations: Manage freelancers, agencies, and vendors (printers, service agencies, advertising partners) to ensure projects are completed on time and within budget, while offering a fairly “self-service” brand design system (Figma and brand site) that becomes more refined as the team grows and the brand evolves.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 10 years of experience in brand and creative leadership, with direct experience in building a cybersecurity or enterprise technology brand from inception through significant valuation events or exits.

• Proven experience in building and leading a team, rather than merely contributing to one.

• A history of transforming a brand from category-generic to category-defining through naming, positioning, and visual identity that resonates with the market.

• Outcome-focused for users, the business, and the brand, rather than solely on output.

• A first-principles thinker who employs empathy for users and audiences, fostering strong design intuition.

• Proficient in narrative systems and conceptual thinking, ensuring every campaign begins with a succinct idea, not a vague mood board.

• A unique perspective on visual craftsmanship, regardless of the medium or substrate.

• Familiarity with a brand strategy framework (purpose, positioning, personality, promise) and a provocative marketing approach tailored for cybersecurity SaaS.

• Communicates with clarity and confidence, presenting your work and defending your ideas while promoting collaboration.

• Experience in managing creative team operations: briefing, overseeing, and reviewing work from freelancers and agencies at scale, with the precision to provide feedback that enhances the output.

• Comfortable supporting product design and addressing challenges outside your immediate scope when the team requires assistance.

• Able to operate without a predefined playbook; in a stealth environment, ambiguity is seen as an opportunity to create rather than a hurdle to complain about.

• Values iteration and regularly revisits your own work to improve it for future cycles.

• Continuously aligns personal and team priorities with the company's goals, and is proactive in seeking help when uncertainty arises.

• Possesses a brand naming sensibility that enables you to assign compelling names to products, blog series, or campaigns that endure beyond their initial pitch.

• Passionate, inquisitive, collaborative, and genuinely enjoyable to work with.

• Acts as an internal culture multiplier: contributes to the internal structures and culture of Neo's marketing and broader team, while helping guide the careers of the creatives and marketers you support, lead, and collaborate with daily.

🏝️ Benefits

• Health insurance

• Retirement plans

• Paid time off

• Flexible work arrangements

• Professional development