SUMMARY DESCRIPTION

The Ford Foundation’s Office of Communications team is hiring a Creative Director (CD) to oversee all aspects of the foundation’s brand identity, including strategic planning and creative content. Reporting to the Vice President of Global Communications, the CD  builds internal and external brand standards, ensuring strategic and high-quality audience experiences on various digital and physical environments (including in Ford’s offices around the world); and bringing to fruition the systems needed to successfully help build key audiences over time.

Directly supervising a core team of creative staff and working across multiple stakeholders, the CD will serve as the senior creative leader at the Foundation and will drive the visual output of the Foundation across all platforms including print, digital, social, interior spaces, and multimedia. 

A competitive candidate will have a deep understanding of brand strategy, contemporary visual culture, and a drive to do mission-driven work. In addition, they will possess strong leadership and strategic communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and an interest in managing the growth and needs of a high performing team. They will nimbly direct and translate abstract ideas into world-class campaigns, stories, and digital experiences.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Work with VP of Global Communications and senior colleagues to formulate brand and creative strategies and to improve brand consistency across platforms. 

• Mentor, motivate and inspire a group of creatives, communications colleagues and freelancers with a diverse range of backgrounds. 

• Sets priorities and oversees the execution and development of creative assets in support of a variety of teams and programming.  Strong art direction skills, including experience with photoshoots and the ability to translate organizational goals into concrete projects and products.

• Ensure timely and seamless execution of cross-functional projects; design flexible and iterative frameworks to foster collaboration, leading work both within the communications function and across the Foundation.

• Demonstrate deep experience developing digital-first brands and content; ability to support ongoing growth and development of flagship digital properties and conceive and execute new digital products as appropriate. Explains complex cultural, digital, and industry trends that may affect how Ford’s communication work is perceived to executive leadership. 

• Hire and manage key relationships and deliverables with creative and production vendors and freelancers.

• Develops, plans, implements, and maintains creative team budgets; Support tracking and reporting web, brand, and campaign-related metrics and benchmarks, including potentially supporting brand health benchmarking efforts.

• Demonstrate interest in and deep knowledge regarding contemporary design practice, and a passion for the design industry, with an outstanding portfolio of print, digital and environmental design.

• Works with program teams, grantees, and partner organizations to develop smart strategies, goals, and content for events.

• Works directly with the president and program vice presidents on events and public engagements in which they are involved and profiled.

• Ensures that events hosted at the foundation by outside organizations reflect the foundation’s brand standards and align with our missions and values. 

• Engages with influential outside leaders and institutions around potential partnerships that build our profile and advance mission with key target audiences. Includes partners such as the UN, CGI, Women in the World, media brands, TED, major conferences, and creative upstarts.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in design or related field,  plus 10+ years of experience in design, agency, or in-house environment, or equivalent combination of experience and education

• Demonstrated interest in brand strategy and design in a mission-driven context

• A minimum of five years successfully managing or leading self-directed creative teams 

• Experience managing projects, consultancies, and budgets across multiple stakeholders with multiple deadlines

• A track record of making sound judgments about competing priorities and managing time and resources well

• Ability to provide strategic counsel to colleagues and senior leaders

• Strong working knowledge of user-centered design, brand development, and creative processes Ability to quickly cultivate strong relationships internal and external to the foundation

• Excellent oral and written presentation skills

• Reliable, trustworthy and operates consistently with the utmost integrity.  Can foster commitment, trust and teamwork within the department and division

• Proficiency in all appropriate creative software (full suite of Adobe Creative Cloud), competency working in Microsoft Office Suite, and G suite products

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Knowledge of video editing or animation software 

• Knowledge and experience producing ADA-compliant designs 

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS

This position is primarily a sedentary role. However, the person in this position may need to occasionally move about inside the office to liaise with internal staff, access files, office machinery and a copy machine/printer.

The Ford Foundation is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its programs, and operations. As part of this commitment, the Foundation will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application process, please contact [email protected].

SALARY: The Ford Foundation is committed to practicing salary transparency. The minimum starting salary for this position is $222,000 and the maximum starting salary is $258,000.  It is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of this range. The final offer is determined by a candidate’s relevant experience and our commitment to internal equity. We review global compensation on a regular basis to ensure market competitiveness and equity. The hiring range for this position has been carefully crafted in alignment with the market.

LOCATION: This position is based in the foundation’s New York office. We operate in a hybrid model and require staff to be in the office three days per week.