VP Creative Director

Noodle is higher education’s leading strategy, services, and technology partner. We develop infrastructure, provide life-changing learning experiences, and grow the awareness of and the enrollment in some of the best academic institutions in the world. Our vision is “to empower universities to change the world.” We achieve this vision by offering our university partners various products and services that help them be more resilient, responsive, efficient, and interconnected.

About the Role

We are seeking a VP-level Creative Director to lead all creative functions in service to our higher education clients. This role will define and elevate creative vision while building a modern, high-performing creative function that delivers both compelling brand storytelling and scalable, high-impact performance marketing creative.

This is a uniquely hybrid role that sits at the intersection of brand storytelling and performance marketing. It combines the strengths of a traditional Creative Director—defining vision, crafting compelling ideas, and elevating creative—with the rigor of a performance-oriented creative leader focused on speed, iteration, and measurable outcomes.

In practice, this means you will be expected to both sell bold, differentiated creative concepts to university partners and ensure that creative output is optimized for performance, produced at scale, and continuously improving based on data.

You will oversee all creative disciplines—including design, art direction, video, creative strategy, and content production—and establish the systems, standards, and workflows that enable both exceptional brand work and efficient, high-throughput execution across channels.

Our work spans the full marketing ecosystem, from research, brand strategy, and institutional positioning to integrated campaign development and execution across digital and traditional channels, including advertising, websites, email, social, video, TV/CTV, audio, print, out-of-home, and more.

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What You’ll Do

Creative Leadership & Vision

• Define and lead the creative vision across all client engagements, spanning brand campaigns and performance marketing initiatives

• Develop new, or translate existing, institutional and program-level positioning into compelling, differentiated creative concepts that resonate with prospective students

• Ensure all creative work—visual and written—balances clarity, effectiveness, and craft across channels

Client-Facing Leadership & Pitching

• Serve as the senior creative lead in high-stakes moments, including new business pitches and strategic client presentations

• Articulate and sell visionary, insight-driven creative concepts to university partners

• Partner with sales and account teams to expand relationships through new creative opportunities and directions

Performance Creative & Optimization

• Build and lead a creative function that delivers high-volume, high-quality performance marketing assets across digital channels

• Manage systems for rapid iteration and continuous improvement based on performance insights

• Partner closely with performance marketing and analytics teams, ensuring creative is responsive to data and campaign needs

• Ensure performance creative is brand-informed but not constrained by perfectionism, prioritizing effectiveness and speed

Omni-Channel Content & Production

• Own the development of content across the funnel, helping to shape and enhance brand positioning while  ensuring alignment with performance goals

• Oversee production of content across formats, including web copy, email campaigns, long-form articles, landing pages, and ad copy

• Lead and oversee all location-based photo and video productions, ensuring the capture of high-quality, brand-aligned content while managing logistical coordination, securing necessary location permits, and obtaining all required releases

• Ensure messaging is clear, differentiated, and tailored to both audience and channel

• Integrate content and design into cohesive, high-performing creative systems

Systems, Speed & Modern Production

• Design and implement workflows that enable speed, scalability, and consistency across creative output

• Drive adoption and thoughtful use of modern creative tools, including AI, to improve throughput and quality

• Continuously evaluate and evolve production models to eliminate bottlenecks and increase efficiency

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, mentor, and grow a multidisciplinary team across design, art direction, video, content strategy, editorial, and freelance talent

• Create a culture that values both creative excellence and operational discipline

• Provide clear direction, feedback, and coaching to elevate team performance and output

• Assess and evolve team structure to support current needs and future growth

Operational Excellence

• Partner with project management and marketing teams to ensure work is delivered on time, on brief/strategy, and aligned with business objectives

• Balance creative ambition with practical constraints (e.g. budgets and timelines), ensuring reliable and predictable delivery

Industry & Market Insight

• • Stay current on trends in higher education marketing, brand strategy, and performance advertising

  • Bring forward new approaches that improve both creative effectiveness and client outcomes

What You Bring

• 12+ years of experience in creative roles, with significant experience in a leadership capacity
• Proven ability to lead creative across both brand campaigns and performance marketing environments
• Experience overseeing both written and visual creative disciplines
• Strong track record of client-facing leadership, including pitching and selling creative concepts
• Portfolio demonstrating work across multiple channels and formats, including digital, web, email, social, video, print, out-of-home, and traditional media.
• Experience building and managing multidisciplinary teams, including mentoring senior talent
• Deep understanding of how creative drives engagement, conversion, and growth
• Ability to operate at both a strategic and hands-on level—from vision-setting to concepting to critique
• Strong communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to influence internal and external stakeholders

What Sets You Apart

• You can move seamlessly between big, conceptual thinking and fast, iterative execution
• You understand that effective creative is not just well-crafted—it is measurable, adaptable, and scalable across channels
• You are comfortable operating in a performance-driven environment where speed, testing, and throughput matter
• You bring a modern perspective on creative production, including how AI and emerging tools can enhance output
• You know how to elevate both message and design without slowing teams down
• You can translate brand and positioning strategy into clear, compelling creative systems that scale across touchpoints
• You bring a strong point of view and can guide teams and stakeholders toward better, more effective creative outcomes

Success in This Role Looks Like

• We win more brand-driven engagements because of the strength, clarity, and distinctiveness of our creative vision
• Creative is a measurable driver of growth, efficiency, and innovation across both brand and performance efforts
• Performance-driven creative is continuously tested, optimized, and improving against key KPIs
• Client work reflects both institutional uniqueness and strong market performance across channels and touchpoints
• The creative team operates with clear standards, strong leadership, and a high level of accountability and productivity

Role Requirements

• Location: Must reside in the continental US, within close proximity to a major airport to facilitate travel to partner universities, as the role requires travel up to 30% of the time

• Internet Connectivity: As this role is primarily remote, a reliable, high-speed internet connection is essential, along with a quiet, organized workspace for participating in camera-on, partner-facing meetings

• Core Business Hours: Available during core hours from 9am-5pm. Start and end times may flex slightly based on your time zone

At Noodle, we hire people who will help us change the future of education. Even if you don't think you check off every bullet point on this list, we still encourage you to apply! We value both current experience and future potential.

Meet the team!

\n$155,000 - $170,000 a year\n

Eligibility Requirements:

This position is based in the United States, and applicants must be legally authorized to live and work in the United States. Employees are required to reside within the United States for the duration of their employment.

At Noodle, we hire people who will help us change the future of online education. Even if you don't think you check off every bullet point on this list, we still encourage you to apply! We value both current experience and future potential.

Noodle is committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive workplace for everyone. We value and celebrate our differences because those differences are what make our team shine. We hire great people from different backgrounds, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it makes us stronger as a whole. Women, people of color, LGBTQIA2S+ individuals, and members of other underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to apply. Noodle is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against candidates on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, or veteran status.

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