Executive Creative Director

About This Role

Strava is the app for active people. With over 150 million athletes in more than 185 countries, Strava is where connection, motivation, and personal bests thrive. No matter your activity, gear, or goals, we help you find your crew, crush your milestones, and keep moving forward. Start your journey with Strava today.

Our mission is simple: to motivate people to live their best active lives. We believe in the power of movement to connect and drive people forward.

Strava is looking for an experienced and passionate Executive Creative Director to join us in our mission to motivate the world to be more active. You will lead a talented team of 15 brand designers, copywriters, production artists while partnering closely with marketing (growth, product & brand) and external agencies. We need a leader who will create stand-out and memorable experiences that engage and inspire active people off and on-platform - existing users, subscribers, prospects, and creators. This leader will lead the creative pillar within a greater design org and will work closely with product design, design systems and user research in addition to our marketing and communications teams.

We are a subscription-based, consumer business, so this role requires empathy and understanding of people who embrace physical activity and movement to lead healthier, happier, lives. As an Executive Creative Director, you’ll be involved in driving every aspect of the brand creative process, leading a cross-functional team (often including contractors and other production agencies) from big ideas to remarkable, flawless execution. We are looking for someone who has experience in extending out a new brand expression. We are looking for someone who can drive both visual and copy, and someone who loves to deliver and learn from data-backed design.

This role will report to the Chief Design Officer and is critical in building a broader creative function at Strava. Close collaboration and thought partnership with marketing leadership will also be a critical aspect to the success of this role.

We follow a flexible hybrid model that translates to more than half of your time on-site in either our NYC, NY or SF, CA office — three days per week.

About You

You are an established Executive Creative Director (or [Senior Director] of Brand Creative) who is excited to join our Design team. You’ll quickly make your mark on the work and the performance of the team, and are exceptional at building relationships, collaborating and understanding how data drives the work.

You will be a vocal leader, advocating for your vision, your team, and helping the organization see the power of creative work that can deepen the audiences’ connection with the brand, and propel the business forward. Collaborating with experts in the marketing team, you’ll find new ways to weave the brand into culture, and fuel conversations both on and off our platform. You will evolve a team of creative designers (including photography, motion, and video), copywriters, content designers and production artists) to drive relevance and distinctiveness with our core audiences (runners and cyclists) while also expanding to new, more diverse audiences, especially under 30 women. .

You will work cross-functionally with leads across Design, Marketing (Brand Marketing, Country Marketing, Product Marketing, Global Communications) and Product to bring the brand to life across all consumer touchpoints. As a Global leader, you connect personally with Strava’s mission, and have a passion for understanding what motivates people to be active and how to translate those insights into brand actions and stories. As one of Strava’s most senior leaders, you are driven to contribute to the greater health and success of your team and the broader company by cultivating a culture of inclusivity and championing creativity in the organization.

What You’ll Do:

• Be insatiably curious about understanding active people and what motivates them so that we can find even more meaningful ways for Strava to add value to their lives.
• Have the desire to build something and get your hands dirty while doing it. Strava is an incredible brand for the people that already know us; we have a tremendous opportunity to recruit more people to the community with marketing creativity that makes the brand magnetic.
• Work brilliantly with teammates in various product, marketing, communications, partnerships and revenue functions at all levels in the organization, pushing to elevate the brand expression in the athlete’s heart and mind at all times.
• Be data obsessed in driving growth via data-backed marketing communications and in product messaging that drives awareness, comprehension, and usage of product offerings. You sweat the details and get into the numbers to ensure creative output for feature launches and persona based communication is having business impact.
• Value creativity and measurement, ensuring the company understands how brand creative is driving short term business outcomes as well as long term brand outcomes.
• Inspire the organization to dream big about what the Strava brand can be. Relish the opportunity to bring the brand to life in key cultural moments that will elevate our brand and drive conversation, while also reinforcing our brand values.
• Be excited about the opportunity to drive our brand through our social and owned channels; and through specific paid media opportunities. We are not launching large brand campaigns or brand moments, so we are looking for a leader who loves driving the brand through other means outside of TV, OOH, etc.

You Will Be Successful Here By:

• Being an exceptional and seasoned creative leader: We need an experienced and influential leader in this role: a person with proven ability to drive strong XFN partnership; someone with high emotional intelligence who can navigate ambiguous situations with sound judgement. A leader who showcases strength in both visual and copy / content.
• Being a champion of simplicity and clarity. As we expand the brand to younger and more diverse audiences, you will distill a seemingly complex set of choices into a simple playbook to unlock relevance with a wider audience.
• Being a strategic thought partner to our marketing team: Showcasing strong business acumen. A director who can collaborate and contribute to marketing briefs as well as translate a marketing strategy into a creative direction, with a proven process and success.
• Living the values of the Brand. As a key leader not only on the design team, but across the organization, you will live the values of the brand in the way that you recruit, build and lead the brand creative team. You will lead with authenticity, compassion and create an inclusive environment for all.

What You’ll Bring to the Team:

• Have 15+ years or equivalent relevant experience in building digital brands, either agency or brand-side, with experience specifically in marketing communications, organic social media, product messaging and growth marketing. You deeply understand the platforms in which the creative will live and perform.
• Are a respected leader, motivator, who is unafraid to roll-up sleeves and lead from the front. People are drawn to you even if they don’t directly report to you.
• You’ve been in a global leadership role before and have an exceptional portfolio of projects to demonstrate setting the bar for creative excellence.
• Can lead and manage a creative team and will empower your teams with a clear vision for the work and direction for the creative voice.
• Are data obsessed and leverage data in your creative decisions. Strong business acumen.
• Are a critical thinker who is comfortable operating without a playbook and is able to be a driving force for a culture of creativity, experimentation and learning.
• Are adept at collaboration and communicating clearly in a fast-paced, sometimes ambiguous environment. Including experience coordinating, directing, providing creative direction to contractors, agencies, and in-house designers
• Are excited about the opportunity to think creatively on driving brand awareness with little to no investment in cinematic film, producing TV commercials, OOH or other traditional brand means.

Compensation Overview:

At Strava, we know our employees are the most important ingredient to our success, and our compensation and total rewards programs reflect that. We take a market-based approach to pay, and pay may vary depending on the department and your location. Salary ranges are categorized into one of three tiers based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. We will determine the candidate’s starting pay based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. We may modify these ranges in the future. For more information, please contact your talent partner.

Compensation: $255,000 - $265,000. This range reflects base compensation only and does not include equity or benefits. Your recruiter can share more details about the full compensation package, including the range specific to your location, during the hiring process.

For more information on benefits, please click here.

Why Join Us?

Movement brings us together. At Strava, we’re building the world’s largest community of active people, helping them stay motivated and achieve their goals.

Our global team is passionate about making movement fun, meaningful, and accessible to everyone. Whether you’re shaping the technology, growing our community, or driving innovation, your work at Strava makes an impact.

When you join Strava, you’re not just joining a company—you’re joining a movement. If you’re ready to bring your energy, ideas, and drive, let’s build something incredible together.

Strava builds software that makes the best part of our athletes’ days even better. Just as we’re deeply committed to unlocking their potential, we’re dedicated to providing a world-class, inclusive workplace where our employees can grow and thrive, too. We’re backed by Sequoia Capital, TCV, Madrone Partners and Jackson Square Ventures, and we’re expanding in order to exceed the needs of our growing community of global athletes. Our culture reflects our community. We are continuously striving to hire and engage teammates from all backgrounds, experiences and perspectives because we know we are a stronger team together.

Strava is an equal opportunity employer. In keeping with the values of Strava, we make all employment decisions including hiring, evaluation, termination, promotional and training opportunities, without regard to race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, physical handicap, mental disability, medical condition, disability, gender or identity or expression, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, marital status, height and/or weight.

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.

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