Creative Director (U.S.)

beehiiv is where the world's best newsletters, podcasts, and digital products are built, grown, and distributed.
The platform combines email, podcast hosting, websites, community, and digital products — connected to a single audience and a single set of tools to publish, grow, and monetize.
As we approach $50M in annualized revenue and continue to grow almost 100% YoY, our rapidly growing product suite and incredibly strong brand position us for the next stage of hypergrowth.

To fill one of our most strategic roles, we're hiring a Creative Director to help lead our incredible brand. You'll own beehiiv's story, personality, and how we show up end to end: from the concept, to the brief, to the final cut. That covers brand campaigns, larger creator and media partnerships, content franchises, and the tentpole moments we want to own every year.

We need an exceptionally creative strategist who's always thinking about how we can make a moment our own, and who has their finger on the pulse of what's happening in culture. You still make things, but you can also easily direct a room and sell your vision. You've made campaigns people talked about, and you pair ambitious storytelling with the operating rigor an always-on growth team needs. 

You'll originate ideas yourself, lead a small creative team, and bring in directors, agencies, and freelancers when they add something we don't have. You'll pitch the biggest bets yourself and build alignment to make them happen.

Compensation will be based on experience. To apply, you must complete our Values Assessment Questionnaire here.  We will consider your responses alongside your qualifications and experience as part of our overall hiring process.

Ideally, you'll have:

• 8+ years leading creative for ambitious brands, ideally in consumer SaaS or at a top agency.
• A standout portfolio of integrated campaigns, brand platforms, and cultural moments that sparked conversation, showcasing bold thinking and exceptional craft.
• Fluency across art direction, copy, design, motion, and photography, with the eye and judgment to elevate work at every stage.
• A proven track record of leading major productions end to end, from selecting directors and creative partners to running shoots and delivering across video, photography, social, and experiential.
• Sharp social-first instincts. You know what breaks through in-feed and how to tap into culture without losing the brand's voice.
• Comfort with data. You use experimentation and funnel metrics to sharpen ideas, while knowing when to trust your creative instincts.
• Exceptional storytelling and presentation skills. You can rally executives, win over skeptical stakeholders, and bring creative partners behind a shared vision.
• The ability to think big and move fast. You can build a brand over years while still shipping Friday's paid creative, and know when each approach is needed. Trendjacking and seizing the moment before it escapes the zeitgeist is exciting to you – not overwhelming.
• A passion for mentoring creative talent, raising the bar, and helping build a world-class team.

What you'll be responsible for:

In year one, expect roughly 80% leading beehiiv's highest-priority campaigns and brand moments, and 20% building the function around them.

Set the vision and lead the campaigns

• Own the creative vision behind beehiiv's biggest campaigns, shaping a distinctive voice across brand, product, partnerships, and cultural moments.
• Turn business goals into bold creative briefs with clear strategic intent and a sharp point of view, then lead ideas from initial spark to launch.
• Dream up and execute standout integrated campaigns across social, digital, out-of-home, experiential, partnerships, and emerging formats.
• Create ambitious brand activations and stunts that bring beehiiv's mission of creator ownership to life and generate buzz on their own.
• Build iconic tentpole moments and repeatable content franchises that become synonymous with beehiiv, year after year.

Lead the team and the production

• Ensure the quality of execution by our in-house creative team and our partners. You should have an eye for detail and the passion to make sure it’s executed to your incredibly high standards.
• Lead production from start to finish, assembling top-tier directors, photographers, animators, and agency partners, and staying hands-on through the final cut.
• Champion bold creative bets, build conviction across stakeholders, and sell ambitious ideas to executive leadership.

Make every channel carry the campaign

• Partner closely with Paid Marketing, Lifecycle, Product Marketing, Social, and Comms to ensure every campaign drives business impact and comes to life across channels.
• Turn big campaign ideas into always-on paid creative, building a testing engine that generates real insights, not just more variants.
• Dig into performance, uncover what resonates, and turn those learnings into sharper, more effective campaigns.

Build the function

• Establish creative principles, processes, and rituals that protect great work and continually raise the bar.
• Move fast and experiment with AI tools, rough cuts, and prototypes to pressure-test bold ideas before committing production budgets.
• Build a trusted bench of exceptional agencies, directors, editors, and freelancers.
• Mentor creative talent and build a world-class team as we grow.

What success looks like

A year in, you'll have brought several standout integrated campaigns from initial insight to launch, establishing a distinctive creative voice for beehiiv across billboards, feeds, and inboxes.

Your campaigns will come to life across paid, lifecycle, and partnerships, backed by a testing engine that turns performance into actionable insights. You'll have built a pipeline of ambitious tentpole moments and signature content franchises, assembled a trusted network of creative partners, and laid the groundwork for a world-class creative team.

Why this role might be for you

• You love momentum. You’d rather ship, learn, and iterate than polish something for months. Here, a good idea on Monday can be live by Friday, and you’ll see your impact in real time.
• You want your creative work to drive business results. You get energy from tying great storytelling to growth. You’ll own work that shows up in reach, pipeline, and revenue, and you’ll be able to point to exactly what it moved.
• You’re a builder who likes to stay hands-on. You’d rather shape a lean, high-caliber team than inherit a big one. You’ll set the bar, pick the right freelancers and agencies, and grow the team as the results justify it.
• You treat data as a creative partner. You like testing your instincts, learning from the numbers, and coming back with something sharper. Strong ideas get stronger here because we pressure-test them.

Why this role might not be for you

• You prefer long timelines. We move fast. Some campaigns go from idea to launch in days, not weeks.
• You're looking for a pure brand role. We're ultimately focused on growing the business. Your work will be measured by reach, pipeline, and conversion, not just creative craft.
• You need a large team from day one. You'll lead a lean, ambitious team, with the flexibility to bring in top-tier freelancers and agencies as needed.
• You're not comfortable having your ideas challenged. We believe great creative and data go hand in hand. Sometimes the numbers will challenge even your best ideas.

Why beehiiv?
Our values aren't a poster on the wall — they're the bar. It’s how we operate, publicly and privately, and what we should return to when making decisions. That’s how we keep our team's momentum. That’s how we hire and keep A players.

beehiiv’s core values

• There's no room for B players ⭐: the best makes everyone better.
• Maniacal sense of urgency ⚡: speed is our superpower.
• Say what you think with positive intent 💬: disagree openly and give hard feedback directly, with the intent to help someone improve.
• User-obsessed 🐝: every decision starts with one question: how does this add value for the user?
• Ego comes second, winning comes first 🏆: we're here to create the best outcome; the team comes before the individual.
  

We'll take care of you:

• Competitive salary
• Stock options
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) employer match
• Unlimited PTO (mandatory 10 days per year minimum)
• Annual in-person team offsite
• Unlimited book budget
• Monthly Wellness Days (every third Friday of the month)