VP Creative

Role Description

The Vice President, Creative is the senior creative leader at Kanahoma, responsible for defining the agency's creative vision while leading a multidisciplinary organization of copywriters, designers, and videographers. Reporting directly to the CEO, this individual will oversee the agency's entire Creative Services product, balancing long-term innovation with exceptional day-to-day execution across every partner engagement.

This is a leadership role for someone who is equally energized by big ideas and operational excellence. You'll shape integrated brand campaigns, performance marketing creative, website experiences, commercial productions, and emerging creative capabilities while building and developing a high-performing creative organization. You'll partner directly with college and university presidents, CMOs, executive leadership teams, and boards while helping define where creative and the agency is headed next.

Role Responsibilities

Own Creative Services as a Product

• Serve as the executive owner of Kanahoma's Creative Services product, defining its long-term vision, strategy, and continued evolution
• Champion the intersection of creativity, brand strategy, performance marketing, AI, and emerging technology to ensure Kanahoma remains ahead of where the market is going
• Develop new creative capabilities, services, frameworks, and best practices that strengthen the agency's competitive advantage
• Partner closely with executive leadership on agency strategy, product development, and long-term growth
• Collaborate with Sales on scopes of work and growth opportunities while supporting strategic partner presentations and new business development
• Partner with account services and executive leadership on project scoping, budget estimation, and resource planning to ensure creative engagements are staffed appropriately and delivered profitably

Build & Lead a Best-in-Class Creative Organization

• Lead and develop a multidisciplinary Creative organization of 10+ professionals across Copy, Design, and Video through a leadership structure of Associate Creative Directors
• Recruit, mentor, and retain exceptional creative talent while fostering a culture of accountability, curiosity, collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement
• Develop leaders who can scale their respective disciplines while maintaining consistently exceptional creative quality
• Build systems, workflows, and operational processes that allow creative excellence to scale without sacrificing speed or craftsmanship
• Serve as the executive leader responsible for the overall performance, health, and continued development of the Creative organization

Lead Creative Strategy Across Every Channel

• Provide executive creative leadership across integrated marketing campaigns spanning awareness through enrollment
• Lead creative strategy across brand campaigns, paid social, paid search, websites, landing pages, digital experiences, video, photography, email, and organic content
• Partner closely with Strategy, Paid Media, SEO, Web, and Account Services teams to deliver integrated marketing solutions that drive enrollment growth
• Help partners uncover and communicate what makes their institution uniquely competitive in an increasingly crowded higher education landscape

Elevate Creative Performance

• Apply a deep understanding of performance marketing to improve conversion across every stage of the enrollment funnel, from inquiry through enrollment
• Ensure creative decisions are informed by strategy, audience insights, testing, and performance data, not simply subjective opinion
• Continually evolve creative best practices based on campaign performance, market trends, and emerging consumer behavior

Lead Kanahoma Productions

• Provide executive creative leadership for Kanahoma Productions, the agency's in-house production company
• Lead six-figure productions with meaningful on-set creative direction and collaboration alongside producers, directors, production crews, photographers, and editors
• Ensure every production reflects exceptional creative quality while supporting strategic marketing objectives and partner goals

Own Kanahoma Casting Deliverables

• Play a consultative role in pitching new Casting projects
• Develop bespoke Casting approaches for existing partner upsells
• Lead all partner-facing Casting presentations
• Work closely with the partner to determine audience pool
• Develop email and survey content
• With needed assistance from Agency Producer, coordinate interviews and follow-ups with respondents
• Build out final casting book and, if a production is involved, consult with the wider team on best-fit cast members

Shape the Future of Creative

• Maintain a strong point of view on emerging trends across AI, organic content, digital platforms, search behavior, creative technology, and the future of marketing
• Explore and implement thoughtful applications of AI that elevate creative thinking, improve workflows, and strengthen outcomes without replacing creativity
• Encourage experimentation, learning, and innovation throughout the Creative organization

Serve as a Strategic Agency Leader

• Represent Kanahoma's Creative organization with confidence and credibility in executive presentations, partner meetings, pitches, and strategic consulting engagements
• Present creative strategy to CMOs, university presidents, executive leadership teams, and boards of trustees
• Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to partners, helping connect institutional objectives with creative solutions that drive measurable growth

Role Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive creative leadership experience, including meaningful time within an agency environment
• Demonstrated success leading multidisciplinary creative organizations spanning copy, design, video, web, and digital experiences
• Proven experience managing and developing creative leaders while building high-performing teams and strong creative cultures
• Significant experience concepting and leading integrated marketing campaigns that successfully combine brand storytelling with measurable performance marketing
• Deep understanding of paid media creative, paid search, paid social, websites, landing pages, conversion optimization, and full-funnel customer journeys
• Meaningful experience developing creative strategies that support complex, multi-step consideration cycles rather than simple awareness campaigns
• Demonstrated experience leading website redesigns, digital experience initiatives, and cross-channel creative strategy
• Significant experience leading six-figure commercial productions, including meaningful on-set creative leadership
• Confidence presenting creative strategy and campaign recommendations to executive leadership, clients, university presidents, and boards
• A passion for emerging technology, AI, and the future of marketing, with demonstrated experience leveraging AI to elevate creative thinking, workflows, and outcomes, not replace them
• Meaningful higher education marketing experience is strongly preferred; experience in other highly competitive industries is equally valuable, and candidates who bring both perspectives are especially encouraged to apply
• A creative portfolio demonstrating candidate experience is required

Kanahoma's Mission

Our mission is to build a better agency for organizations building a better world. Whether we're building a brand or driving the bottom line, we pride ourselves on being progressive performance marketers called to serve and support mission-driven organizations across the education and nonprofit industries.

By joining Kanahoma, you are committing to core values that define our (and your) success, and shape how we approach everything we do, every day:

We Find A Better Way

At Kanahoma, we are relentless in our pursuit of building a better agency. So when a solution isn't satisfactory we make our own.

Results Aren't Our Goal, They're Our Engine

At Kanahoma, winning is a prerequisite. We are constantly pushing to evolve and iterate our work to exceed expectations and ensure our partners get the results they deserve.

Just A-Players

We play and win as a team. We don't believe that confident, superior work should come at the expense of company culture.

We Seek to Serve

We embrace our role as a service business and seek opportunities to go above and beyond for our partners.

We execute on the above core values by balancing the four pillars of advocacy

Self Advocacy: Asserting and clearly communicating your needs and interests while taking responsibility for personal well-being and decisions

Team Advocacy: Championing your team's needs, addressing their challenges and highlighting their achievements to ensure they have the resources and recognition to succeed

Business Advocacy: Supporting and promoting Kanahoma's goals, securing and/or requesting the necessary resources to make strategic decisions to drive growth and exceed goals

Partner Advocacy: Representing the partner's needs, goals, and best interests by ensuring their concerns are heard, providing solutions that align with their objectives, and delivering value to build trust and satisfaction