Creative Director

Upwork ($UPWK) is the world’s work marketplace. We serve everyone from one-person startups to over 30% of the Fortune 100 with a powerful, trust-driven platform that enables companies and talent to work together in new ways that unlock their potential.  

Last year, more than $3.3 billion of work was done through Upwork by skilled professionals who are gaining more control by finding work they are passionate about and innovating their careers. 

As the Creative Director, you will join our in-house team of conceptual problem solvers responsible for defining Upwork's brand voice and character through innovative campaigns. You will lead a diverse team of creatives across both disciplines of art and copy to bring to life the Upwork brand. 

As part of Upwork’s commitment to innovative and integrated creative leadership, this role drives strategic alignment across all creative disciplines, ensuring impactful brand storytelling and operational excellence. This role requires a unified creative leader, combining leadership across both art and copy disciplines while driving integrated creative strategies to elevate the Upwork brand. You will lead a team of varying creative disciplines to embrace big ideas that drive business objectives. You will guide your team of creatives while remaining hands-on with the work, always seeking to set a higher standard for the team and the brand.

Your Responsibilities

• Lead and oversee end-to-end creative execution across high priority campaigns and high impact projects like product launches and company wide initiatives, evergreen campaigns, growth campaigns, as well as brand and cultural moments across a variety of mediums including but not limited to film, OOH, social, websites, events, product, packaging, branded entertainment, and frequent brand photoshoot, ensuring seamless integration across visual and verbal storytelling. 

• Lead brand photography initiatives, ensuring alignment with Upwork’s strategic goals and brand identity.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to oversee the strategic management of growth advertising partnerships.

• Partner closely with product marketing and core product teams to bring to life meaningful storytelling around Upwork’s latest product launches.

• Help oversee the implementation of the new brand design system and tone of voice work ensuring creative consistency while bringing campaigns to life in new and exciting ways.

• Champion creativity across all mediums, integrating conceptual ideation, visual language and approach, copywriting, and tone of voice, to ensure brand consistency and innovation.  

• Oversee and consult on agency relationships helping to steward the brand and achieve creative excellence.

• Help lead in-house in creative strategy, execution, and production across projects and campaigns.

• Create a high bar of creative excellence and brand consistency across all brand products, platforms, and campaigns

• Ability to closely collaborate with XFN teams including marketing, product, comms, and various other stakeholders across the business. 

• Ability to lead and grow a team of conceptual creatives, as well as lead and collaborate with executional/studio support designers and writers.

• Ability to partner closely with the rest of the creative leadership team in achieving creative, operational, and design excellence.

• Uphold team cultural values and foster an inclusive environment that allows your team to create great work. 

What it takes to catch our eye

• 10+ years of experience at an agency/in-house creative department of a brand.

• Proven ability to manage and inspire interdisciplinary teams, driving alignment across art, copy, and integrated creative disciplines.

• Experience creating concepts, storytelling, branding, and high-level execution.

• Experience in a multitude of creative disciplines, including film, print, packaging, product, mobile, activations, and OOH

• Experience with emerging technologies, Ai related products

• Experience launching tech products, and collaborating closely with product and product marketing teams to create market-defining campaigns.

• A link to an online portfolio showcasing your work

• Experience with distributed teams

• Self-driven, independent, organized, detail-oriented, excellent multitasking, and the ability to write and concept the work in addition to managing a team

• Experience working collaboratively with cross-functional teams

Come change how the world works.

At Upwork, you’ll shape talent solutions for how the world works today. We are a remote-first organization working together to create exciting remote work opportunities for a global community of professionals. While we have physical offices in San Francisco and Chicago, currently we also hire full-time employees in 19 states in the United States.

Our vibrant culture is built on shared values and our mission to create economic opportunities so that people have better lives. We foster amazing teams, put our community first, and have a bias toward action. We encourage everyone to bring their whole selves to work and grow together through development opportunities, mentorship, and employee resource groups. Oh yeah, we’ve also got amazing benefits.

Check out our Careers page to learn more about the employee experience.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.