Creative Director

Join us as we work to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.

Position Summary:
The Creative Director is a marketing leadership role responsible for the creative vision, concept development, and campaign quality of athenahealth's marketing work. This leader originates and shapes big creative ideas, from campaign concepts through major brand moments, and builds a creative team capable of consistently delivering work at that level.

Reporting to the Executive Director, Creative & Content, this role partners closely with teams across Marketing to develop creative concepts and campaigns. This role also works closely with the Head of Creative and Content Operations, and with the Director, Content Hub & Studio, to ensure creative concepts are grounded in production reality and move effectively through the studio.

This position requires a strong creative point of view, the ability to develop and pitch big ideas to senior stakeholders, and the leadership skills to build and grow a team of creative talent. The ideal candidate brings a track record of leading creative for B2B SaaS, healthcare technology, enterprise software, or similarly complex marketing organizations, along with experience building and developing creative teams.

Essential Job Responsibilities:

• Develop original creative concepts for major campaigns, brand initiatives, and cross channel marketing moments, working from strategic and messaging directions set by Brand and Editorial & Content Strategy.

• Pitch and defend creative concepts to senior marketing leadership and other stakeholders, building consensus around a strong creative direction.

• Set the overall creative vision for how athenahealth shows up in market, ensuring big ideas are distinctive, on brand, and effective.

• Partner with stakeholders early in the planning process so creative concepts are grounded in strategy from the start.

• Push the team to develop bolder, more ambitious creative rather than defaulting to safe or expected ideas.

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of creative talent, including designers, copywriters, and other creative staff, building their range and ambition as creative thinkers.

• Recruit and develop creative talent, building a team capable of generating strong concept work consistently.

• Create a culture where creative risk taking is encouraged and where the team is pushed to do their best conceptual work.

• Provide creative feedback and direction that helps individual team members grow, not just improves the immediate deliverable.

• Establish creative development opportunities, including exposure to new tools, techniques, and outside inspiration, to keep the team's thinking fresh.

Additional Job Responsibilities:

• Serve as the primary creative voice in planning conversations with Brand, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Segment, and Customer Marketing.

• Work closely with the Head of Creative and Content Operations to align creative ambition with production capacity, timelines, and resourcing, and to ensure operational realities are considered early in concept development.

• Partner with Brand to ensure creative concepts express brand identity in ways that feel fresh and distinctive, not just compliant.

• Champion creative excellence as a standard across the marketing organization, advocating for the resources and time needed to develop strong concepts.

• Stay current on creative trends, tools, and techniques relevant to B2B marketing and healthcare technology, bringing new thinking into the team.

Expected Education & Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Advertising, Design, Fine Arts, Communications, or a related field required.

• 10+ years of progressive experience in creative roles, including concept development, art direction, or copywriting, with a strong portfolio of creative work.

• At least 5 years in a creative leadership role managing and developing other creative talent.

• Proven track record developing and pitching big creative concepts that were adopted and executed at an enterprise scale.

•  Experience in B2B SaaS, healthcare technology, enterprise software, or similarly complex organizations preferred.

• Strong, distinctive creative point of view, with the ability to generate original concepts rather than iterating existing ideas.

• Ability to pitch and defend creative work persuasively to senior stakeholders, including pushback and negotiation on creative direction.

• Skilled at balancing creative ambition with brand guardrails and business objectives.

• Demonstrated ability to recruit, mentor, and grow creative talent, with a track record of developing people into stronger creative thinkers.

• Experience building a creative team culture that supports experimentation and high-quality conceptual work.

• Strong feedback and coaching skills, with the ability to give creative direction that develops people over time.

• Excellent presentation and storytelling skills, with the ability to bring stakeholders along on a creative vision.

• Comfortable operating in a matrixed organization where creative vision must align with strategy, production capacity, and business goals.

Expected Compensation

The base salary range shown reflects the full range for this role from minimum to maximum. At athenahealth, base pay depends on multiple factors, including job-related experience, relevant knowledge and skills, how your qualifications compare to others in similar roles, and geographical market rates.  Base pay is only one part of our competitive Total Rewards package - depending on role eligibility, we offer both short and long-term incentives by way of an annual discretionary bonus plan, variable compensation plan, and equity plans.