Creative Director

The Creative Director at The Lincoln Electric Company provides global leadership for creative execution, brand stewardship, and creative operations. This role strengthens creative quality and consistency across a distributed marketing organization while applying enterprise brand strategy and governance standards.

Role Scope

This position has global functional responsibility across creative execution, brand application, creative governance, external creative partner management, and creative operations. The Director influences creative work across marketing functions, regions, business units, agencies, offshore or outsourced resources, and production partners. The role is expected to build scalable creative workflows, operating standards, and resource models that improve quality, consistency, speed, and accountability.

Responsibilities

• Maintain and apply Lincoln Electric’s global visual identity system, creative standards, and brand expression guidelines within the approved BMC framework.
• Operate governance processes to support consistent brand execution across global marketing touchpoints.
• Review and approve day-to-day creative work to confirm alignment with brand standards, business priorities, customer needs, and channel requirements, escalating major positioning or identity questions through the appropriate approval process.
• Partner with regional and business-unit marketing teams to balance global consistency with appropriate local market adaptation.
• Define and apply creative quality standards for campaigns, product launches, digital experiences, events, sales enablement, videos, photography, social content, and printed materials.
• Translate business, product, campaign, and customer objectives into clear creative direction, creative options, and execution recommendations.
• Lead creative concept development for major campaigns, launches, enterprise initiatives, and brand programs aligned to approved brand and business strategy.
• Guide development of visual systems, messaging platforms, creative briefs, campaign concepts, and creative storytelling approaches.
• Ensure creative work remains visually strong while also being strategically grounded, commercially relevant, and customer-centered.
• Present creative options, strategy, and recommendations to senior leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Lead, coach, and develop internal creative team members and other assigned creative resources, setting clear expectations for quality, ownership, collaboration, responsiveness, and professional development.
• Build a culture of accountability, constructive feedback, creative excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Identify capability gaps across the creative function and recommend staffing, training, outsourcing, or operating model improvements.
• Provide leadership across a distributed creative model, including onshore team members, offshore or outsourced resources, shared-service teams, centers of excellence, and external partners.
• Manage relationships with agencies, design firms, production partners, photographers, videographers, freelancers, and other external creative contributors.
• Develop scopes of work, creative briefs, expectations, timelines, and review processes for external partners.
• Evaluate agency and partner performance based on strategic contribution, creative quality, responsiveness, efficiency, and brand alignment.
• Ensure external partners understand Lincoln Electric’s brand standards, business priorities, audience needs, and execution expectations.
• Support agency selection, onboarding, performance review, and rationalization as needed.
• Establish and improve creative intake, prioritization, scheduling, review, approval, and production workflows, including intake from Digital Experience and other functions that route creative work through this team for fulfillment.
• Manage creative capacity across internal team members, offshore or outsourced resources, centers of excellence, agencies, and freelancers.
• Create operating rules for what work is handled internally, externally, regionally, globally, or through shared services.
• Implement creative project management practices that improve visibility, accountability, resource planning, and delivery reliability.
• Partner with marketing operations, digital, and content teams to improve use of DAM systems, templates, and creative tools, including AI-enabled workflows as capability matures.
• Serve as a senior creative advisor to marketing, business, product, sales, and executive stakeholders.
• Help business partners clarify objectives, audiences, messages, and desired customer outcomes before creative execution begins.
• Ensure creative work supports commercial priorities, brand positioning, customer experience, and global marketing transformation goals.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, Visual Communications, Advertising, Marketing, Communications, Fine Arts, or a related field.
• Minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in creative, brand, advertising, design, marketing communications, or integrated campaign leadership.
• Minimum of 5 years of direct people leadership experience managing designers, writers, art directors, content creators, production specialists, or multidisciplinary creative teams.
• Demonstrated experience in an agency environment or managing agency-side creative work, including creative briefs, concept development, client and stakeholder presentations, feedback cycles, budgets, timelines, and production delivery.
• Demonstrated experience managing external creative partners, including agencies, freelancers, production vendors, or design firms.
• Demonstrated experience leading creative strategy and execution across multiple channels, including digital, web, email, social, video, events, print, sales enablement, and campaign materials.
• Demonstrated experience owning, enforcing, or evolving brand standards, visual identity systems, creative guidelines, or creative governance processes.
• Proven ability to lead creative work from brief through concept, execution, review, approval, and final delivery.
• Proven ability to manage creative operations, including intake, prioritization, resource planning, workflow management, project review, and production coordination.
• Strong executive communication and presentation skills, including presenting creative options clearly, explaining strategic rationale, and incorporating stakeholder and leadership feedback.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating high-quality creative output and leadership of creative strategy, team direction, brand standards, integrated campaign development, and multi-resource execution.
• Proficiency with Adobe Creative Cloud.
• Ability to work in the United States without current or future sponsorship.

Technologies

• Adobe Creative Cloud
• DAM systems

Decision Authority

• Day-to-day creative direction, creative review processes, and creative execution within approved enterprise brand strategy and governance standards.
• Application of creative standards, visual system usage, and design quality expectations within the established BMC framework.
• Recommended use of internal versus external or offshore creative resources.
• Day-to-day management of creative resources, agencies, freelancers, and external partners.
• Intake and prioritization of creative requests submitted by Digital Experience and other functions for fulfillment.
• Brand positioning, visual identity, or governance framework changes.
• Significant agency engagements or changes to the agency model.
• Major budget, staffing, or operating model changes.
• Enterprise-level creative strategy for high-visibility corporate, executive, or global initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing offshore creative resources, shared-service teams, or creative centers of excellence.
• Experience with DAM platforms, CMS platforms, marketing automation tools, project management systems, and AI-enabled creative workflows.
• Experience leading creative or brand functions in a global, matrixed, manufacturing, industrial, B2B, technology, or complex multi-business-unit environment.
• Experience building or transforming an in-house creative function.
• Experience with brand governance across distributed regional or global teams.
• Experience managing creative budgets, agency scopes of work, vendor negotiations, and production investments.
• Experience supporting product launches, trade shows, major events, channel marketing, distributor communications, or sales enablement.
• Master’s degree, MBA, or advanced design/brand/marketing education.

Location and Work Mode

Cleveland, OH (onsite)