Creative Director

The Creative Director leads Graco's global creative function, driving the development of compelling brand experiences, content, and creative strategies that advance business objectives across a complex global organization. This role serves as both a creative leader and strategic marketing partner, enabling teams to deliver high-impact creative solutions while strengthening brand expression, increasing content scalability, and enhancing the creative experiences that support Graco’s digital channels.  

The Creative Director leads a global team of creative professionals and works across business divisions, functions, and regions to ensure creative excellence, brand consistency, operational effectiveness, and measurable business impact. This individual will elevate the role of Creative from a production-focused service organization to a trusted strategic partner that helps drive customer engagement, demand generation, and brand growth. 
 

What You Will Do at Graco 

Strategic Partnership & Creative Leadership 

• Serve as a strategic partner to marketing leaders, helping shape initiatives through customer-centric storytelling, creative problem-solving, and integrated campaign development. 

• Translate business objectives into creative strategies and concepts that drive awareness, engagement, demand, and customer loyalty. 

• Lead creative reviews and provide actionable feedback that elevates creative quality and business impact across all marketing channels and mediums. 

• Influence stakeholders across a highly matrixed organization to align on creative priorities, brand standards, and customer experience objectives. 

• Build trusted relationships with divisional and regional marketing teams, positioning Creative as a proactive strategic partner rather than a transactional service provider. 

• Support enterprise and executive-level initiatives through the development and refinement of strategic creative concepts and brand storytelling. 

• Champion the value of Creative across the organization by elevating strategic thinking, innovation, and customer-centric design 

Creative Direction and Design Strategy  

• Lead the development and execution of creative strategies, concepts, campaigns, and content across digital, print, video, social, web, and multimedia channels.  

• Oversee the creation and production of visual, written, and interactive content to strengthen the Graco brand and support business objectives.

• Partner  with , marketing, communications, product, digital and business leaders deliver customer-centric creative solutions.  

• Inspire teams through a clear creative vision while ensure ideas are grounded in business objectives and customer needs.  

• Establish creative standards and best practices that elevate quality, consistency, and effectiveness of all deliverables.  

• Review and guide creative concepts developed by the team, ensuring work meets the highest standards for creativity, usability, and brand alignment. 

Brand Partnership & Creative Stewardship 

• Partner with Brand leaders to translate brand strategy, positioning, and messaging into compelling customer-facing experiences. 

• Serve as a key contributor to the evolution of Graco's brand identity, ensuring creative execution reflects customer needs, market expectations, and business objectives. 

• Lead the creative interpretation and execution of the Graco brand across campaigns, content, digital experiences, events, and sales enablement materials. 

• Ensure creative deliverables consistently reflect established brand standards, messaging frameworks, and visual identity guidelines. 

• Influence stakeholders across the organization to strengthen brand consistency while meeting business and customer objectives. 

• Collaborate with regional and divisional marketing teams to adapt creative assets for global markets while preserving brand integrity. 

• Provide creative leadership for localization, translation, and adaptation efforts across international markets. 

• Identify opportunities to strengthen brand recognition, consistency, and effectiveness through exceptional creative execution. 

Digital Experience & Innovation 

• Champion modern, digital-first creative approaches across websites, social media, digital campaigns, video, and emerging channels. 

• Advance Graco's digital design maturity through contemporary creative practices, customer-focused design thinking, and evolving content formats. 

• Identify opportunities to improve creative effectiveness through technology, automation, and workflow enhancements. 

• Lead the exploration and responsible adoption of AI-enabled creative tools and processes to improve efficiency, increase content output, and enhance team productivity. 

• Partner with Digital and Marketing teams to ensure creative solutions support exceptional customer experiences across digital touchpoints. 

• Monitor creative, branding, digital, and content trends to ensure Graco remains current and competitive. 

Project Oversight and Quality Management 

• Partner with Marketing Operations and cross-functional stakeholders to ensure effective prioritization and execution of creative initiatives. 

• Oversee multiple projects and campaigns simultaneously while maintaining high quality standards and effective resource utilization. 

• Ensure creative work delivers against business objectives, customer needs, and brand expectations. 

• Measure the effectiveness of creative initiatives and continuously improve processes, workflows, and deliverables. 

• Recommend and leverage internal and external resources to maximize team effectiveness, scalability, and speed to market. 

• Support the continued evolution of Graco's content production model to meet growing organizational needs efficiently and effectively. 

Team Leadership and Financial Management 

• Lead, mentor,  and develop a high-performing global creative team comprised of art directors, graphic designers, copywriters, and other creative professionals.  

• Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement. 

• Coach team members to strength creative excellence, strategic thinking, digital capabilities, and business acumen.  

• , ensuring alignment with organizational goals and promoting a culture of excellence. 

• Drive team performance by setting clear goals, performance expectations, and developments plans that support both organizational and an individual’s growth. 

• Build organizational capabilities that support the evolving needs of the business and modern marketing environment. 

• Create a culture that embraces experimentation, learning, and reasonable adoption of emerging technologies. 

• Manage creative budget, ensuring effective allocation of resources to business objectives. 

What You Will Bring to Graco 

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Graphic Design, Visual Arts, Communications, or a related field. 

• 8+ years of progressive experience in creative, design, brand or content functions. 

• Excellent leadership skills; 4+ years of leading and developing high-performing creative teams preferred.  

• Proven leadership experience in designing and implementing creative design and content strategies and deliverables within a global business context. 

• Demonstrated ability to transform creative organizations by strengthening strategic partnerships, modernizing capabilities, and improving the scalability and effectiveness of content production. 

• Proven ability to influence stakeholders and drive alignment across functions, business units, and geographies without direct authority. 

• Strong portfolio and leadership track record demonstrating strategic thinking, creative excellence, talent development, and measurable business impact 

• Deep understanding of digital marketing, content strategy, web experiences, social media, video, and integrated campaign development. 

• Experience supporting global brands across multiple audiences, channels, markets, and business units. 

• Exceptional communication, presentation, collaboration, and relationship-building skills. 

• Strong business acumen with the ability to connect creative investments to organizational objectives and outcomes. 

• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) and other relevant design tools.  

• Ability to travel approximately 10% of time, both domestic and international 

Accelerators 

• Global industrial manufacturing experience and business acumen with both B2B and B2C experience.   

• Background leading creative transformation initiatives that improved organizational effectiveness, content scalability, or stakeholder engagement 

• Experience modernizing creative operations through technology, automation, and AI-enabled workflows 

 #LI-Hybrid