Executive Creative Director

Godfrey Dadich Partners (GDP) combines the best of strategy, journalism, design, marketing, and digital to build story-driven brands. Our group includes Upstatement, a digital product studio, and Ghost Note, a brand and community creative studio.

GDP is seeking an executive creative director to further elevate our creative vision at a transformative moment for our studio and the industry. This is a pivotal leadership role that blends narrative craft, visual storytelling, and business acumen to shape brands that move audiences and markets alike. You’ll drive creative innovation across all touchpoints—from brand campaigns and digital experiences to editorial and AI-powered storytelling—and help redefine what a modern multidisciplinary studio can be.

Whatever the brief, you seek to build an authentic connection with audiences to engage, inform, and delight. As a creative leader you want to produce work that shares compelling stories and moves people to action. You believe in the power of design—not as decoration, but as a critical tool to activate an idea. Your work demonstrates a commitment to craft and a clear narrative, from strategic foundation to concept and execution. You listen with empathy, explain the “whys” behind decisions, question assumptions (including your own), and share your perspectives with conviction. And you understand that achieving great outcomes requires inspiring and empowering teams to do their best work. 

In today’s creative landscape there is an underlying requirement for leaders to have fluency in AI-powered tools and workflows, with a demonstrated ability to harness generative technologies to accelerate concept development, explore design variations, and augment storytelling processes. The ideal candidate has a proven ability to guide teams in integrating AI into ideation, prototyping, and production without compromising craft, ethics, or originality.

This client-facing role is based in San Francisco.

Key responsibilities include:

• Define and lead the creative vision: set the creative direction of the studio and ensure that every project ladders up to a cohesive, compelling brand experience for GDP and its clients.
• Drive strategic brand development: oversee the evolution of brand identities, narratives, and expression—from foundational strategy to concept to execution across editorial, digital, social, motion, and environmental design.
• Champion design as strategy: collaborate with the partners and client stakeholders to integrate creative thinking into business planning and overall strategy.
• Elevate client partnerships: Cultivate and expand trusted relationships with executive-level clients. Guide them through strategic and creative opportunities that position GDP as a long-term thought partner.
• Build and lead high-performing teams: Mentor and manage a multidisciplinary team of designers and writers. Foster an inclusive, collaborative, and high-trust culture where creativity thrives.
• Shape creative operations and resourcing: help define team structure, workflows, and creative systems that enable scalability, quality, and agility across projects and client relationships.
• Advance AI-integrated creative practices: lead the integration of generative AI tools and frameworks into creative workflows—accelerating ideation, concept development, and storytelling in ways that uphold the integrity of the craft.
• Set the bar for creative excellence: review and provide high-level feedback on work across all stages—from brief to final execution—to ensure that creative ideas are both strategically grounded and beautifully executed.
• Champion collaborator: connect brand storytelling with measurable performance outcomes in partnership with strategy, editorial, and design teams.

Qualifications:

• 12–15+ years of experience in creative leadership roles across design, editorial, or advertising environments.
• A demonstrated understanding of how to establish, market, grow, and evolve brands through design, from startups and nonprofits to large-scale global organizations.
• A proven ability to lead and inspire teams—balancing high creative standards with clear communication and mentorship.
• The ability to successfully coordinate with and provide creative direction to contractors, external partners, and in-house multidisciplinary creatives.
• Excellent presentation, interpersonal, and communication skills, with the ability to communicate complex, sometimes abstract, concepts clearly and persuasively to both client and internal partners.
• A strong knowledge of design principles and best practices related to a combination of marketing, branding, product, and/or editorial, with a keen eye for typography, grids, and technical craft.
• A track record of driving high-performing creative work that wins awards, earns media attention, or delivers performance results.
• A passion for bringing ideas to life in digital environments, with a demonstrated understanding of current best practices for digital design, including accessibility, motion design, and prototyping. 
• A high-level understanding of digital experience design, with a demonstrated ability to work with expert freelancers in web and product design capacities.
• A demonstrated fluency with design tools, including the full suite of Adobe Creative Cloud and Figma, as well as competency in Keynote and G Suite products. An understanding of animation, film production, and/or development process is a plus.
• Executive-level presence with strong client relationship skills and a consultative mindset.
• A deep fluency in design principles across branding, editorial, digital, and motion—paired with a strong point of view on visual identity, narrative, and user-centered design.
• A track record of integrating AI tools into creative processes in a way that enhances ideation, accelerates workflows, and maintains ethical and aesthetic rigor.

About Godfrey Dadich Partners

GDP helps brands clarify complexity to tell sophisticated stories that build trust, authority, and engagement. We combine strategic thinking, design excellence, and editorial rigor to help brands connect with high-value audiences in memorable, meaningful ways. Our capabilities span brand strategy and architecture; human-centered design across digital platforms; motion and animation; editorial and print design; and content strategy and development.

The salary range for this role is $225,000 - $275,000.

Our salary offers take into consideration the skills and experience a candidate brings, pay equity across similar roles within GDP, and the market rate for similar roles outside of GDP. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant, along with the requirements of the position. The company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. GDP is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment, and also offers comprehensive health and wellbeing benefits, personal and professional development, and career growth opportunities.