Creative Director
Microsoft
Microsoft’s Consumer Marketing Organization is seeking a visionary Creative Director to shape and elevate the creative direction of our consumer‑facing social storytelling, with a strong emphasis on Copilot and Microsoft’s flagship products. This role is responsible for defining the creative vision, driving breakthrough social narratives, and setting a new bar for creative excellence across platforms.
What You’ll Lead
- Establish and own the creative vision for Microsoft’s social presence, ensuring our storytelling is bold, modern, culturally relevant, and deeply connected to brand purpose.
- Lead concept development, visual direction, and narrative frameworks for campaigns that introduce and amplify products like Microsoft Copilot, Windows, Surface, Edge, and M365.
- Generate breakthrough social‑first ideas that translate complex product stories—especially in AI—into compelling, human-centered creative.
- Champion a high creative standard across channels such as LinkedIn, X, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
- Provide creative thought leadership for Microsoft in the broader social and tech industry, staying ahead of cultural shifts, new formats, and emerging storytelling techniques.
How You’ll Drive Impact
- Translate brand and business objectives into big creative platforms that resonate across diverse global audiences.
- Partner with cross‑functional teams, agencies, strategists, product marketers, and production partners to bring elevated concepts to life.
- Guide teams through ideation, creative reviews, and refinement—ensuring every asset reflects Microsoft’s voice, values, and quality expectations.
- Ensure all creative aligns with Microsoft’s standards for accessibility, inclusion, and brand integrity.
- Inspire, mentor, and develop creative talent while fostering innovation and collaboration.
Who You Are
- A senior creative leader with a strong point of view and a portfolio demonstrating innovative, high‑impact storytelling, particularly in social or digital brand ecosystems.
- Comfortable operating at the intersection of creativity, culture, technology, and AI.
- Experienced in shaping brand narratives and presenting big ideas to senior leadership.
- Able to balance visionary thinking with the ability to guide teams through the execution process.
- Highly adaptable in fast-moving environments and energized by creating what’s next in social storytelling.
Why Microsoft
Microsoft is driven by a mission to empower every person and organization to achieve more—grounded in a culture of growth mindset, respect, integrity, accountability, and inclusion. You’ll join a team redefining how Microsoft shows up in culture and shaping the future of social creative leadership.
Responsibilities
Creative Direction & Storytelling:
- Drive the creative direction of social campaigns, collaborating with in-house creative and production teams, as well as social creators and leveraging emerging platforms.
- Translate insights, trends, and cultural moments into breakthrough visual and editorial concepts. Lead ideation and development of social-first campaigns, content series, and real-time activations.
- Conceptualize quick-turn assets across formats, including video, animation, and motion graphics.
- Direct the creation of compelling design systems, motion assets, photography, and content that tells a cohesive consumer journey.
- Ensure visual consistency and creative excellence across all deliverables.
Creative Leadership & Collaboration:
- Present creative ideas and concepts to internal stakeholders and senior leadership.
- Stay updated on trends in internet culture and audience behaviors to inspire and inform creative work.
- Partner with product, brand marketers, strategists, and production teams to meet campaign objectives and audience needs.
- Exhibit design innovation by integrating AI tools and workflows to scale and enhance creative production quality.
- Collaborate with creative and production partners to ensure world-class execution.
- Use insights and strategic thinking to approach marketing challenges and deliver breakthrough solutions in a complex social landscape.
- Ideate, develop, and execute creative strategies focused on Owned & Creator channels AI & Workflow Optimization Guide team members in the effective use of AI tools and creative workflows, implementing cutting-edge solutions to improve speed to market.
- Inspire product storytelling efforts by leveraging audience and cultural insights. Foster relationships with agency and production partners to optimize for best-in-class creative work. Manage multiple projects and timelines, maintaining a high standard of craft and creative leadership.
Qualifications
Required/minimum qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Public Relations, or related field AND 5+ years integrated marketing (e.g., digital, relationship, social media, campaign), event management, marketing strategy, business planning, marketing operations, or related work experience.
- OR equivalent experience.
- Master's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Public Relations, or related field AND 3+ years integrated marketing (e.g., digital, relationship, social media, campaign), event management, marketing strategy, business planning, marketing operations, or related experience
- OR Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Public Relations, or related field AND 7+ years integrated marketing (e.g., digital, relationship, social media, campaign), event management, marketing strategy, business planning, marketing operations, or related experience.
- OR equivalent experience.
- 8+ years leading social-first creative across strategy, concepting, and multi-format production (consumer tech experience preferred).
- Demonstrated ability to translate complex data into clear insights and creative actions, informing briefs, concepts, and optimizations that move brand and business metrics.
- Deep platform fluency (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X, LinkedIn) and native content formats, with a track record of breakthrough storytelling, real-time activations, and creator collaborations.
- Analytical rigor and hands-on experience with social measurement and reporting tools (e.g., Sprinklr, native platform insights) to evaluate performance, diagnose underperformance, and iterate.
- Excellence in creative direction & craft guiding design systems, motion, photography, and editorial to maintain visual consistency and raise the creative bar across deliverables.
- Executive communication and stakeholder influence confident presenting to senior leadership and building consensus across product, brand, strategy, and production partners.
- Team leadership mentoring multidisciplinary creatives, setting quality standards, and managing multiple projects/timelines in a fast-paced environment.
- AI-forward creative workflows experience integrating AI tools to scale ideation, accelerate production, and elevate craft quality. Brand, accessibility, and compliance stewardship work that aligns with Microsoft’s brand voice and accessibility standards.
- Preferred Familiarity with Microsoft’s brand voice, governance, and compliance standards.
- Experience in consumer marketing or the tech industry.
- Advanced degree (MBA or relevant Master’s) is a plus.
- Strong thought leadership in social media (e.g., speaking at industry events, publishing insights) and a passion for staying ahead of trends and emerging platforms.
- Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment, manage multiple priorities, and adapt to changing market dynamics.
Integrated Marketing IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $165,600 - $272,300 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.