Creative Director - Experiential

San Francisco, CA (Hybrid)

$160K/yr – $190K/yrSenior Level8+ years expFull time

Posted 4 months ago

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Job Summary

Drive end-to-end experiential design for large-scale conferences and live brand environments, from brief to on-site execution.

  • Own/lead the attendee experience across conferences and activations with production-aware creative decisions.
  • Must-have: 8+ years of agency experience leading complex experiential programs end-to-end.
  • Standout: Global creative consistency and leadership of junior talent across multiple programs.

Job Description

Responsibilities

  • Lead experience design across a portfolio of large-scale technology conferences, trade show activations, and live brand environments owning the creative from brief through on-site execution
  • Think holistically about the attendee journey: how people move through a space, how wayfinding and environmental design shape experience, how the small moments between the big ones define how an event feels
  • Translate program objectives into practical, beautifully executed creative solutions balancing creative ambition with production reality at every stage
  • Work in close partnership with the Executive Producer, treating production knowledge as creative input rather than creative constraint
  • Manage a high volume of simultaneous workstreams and evolving briefs with clarity and good humour adapting quickly, reprioritising intelligently, and keeping the team oriented around what matters most
  • Direct and oversee junior creatives and freelance talent across multiple programs, providing clear, actionable creative direction that can be executed at pace
  • Maintain global creative consistency across markets and agency offices, serving as the single source of truth for how this client's brand is expressed through experience
  • Build a genuine creative partnership with a client that is ambitious, enthusiastic, and growing in their understanding of what agency collaboration can produce
  • Help establish clear, effective ways of working that give the client confidence and give the creative team the structure they need to do their best work
  • Bring creative solutions to the table proactively not waiting for a perfect brief, but finding the opportunity in whatever you're given

Requirements

  • 8+ years of agency-side experience in experiential marketing or brand experience, with a proven track record leading creative on large-scale, complex programs end-to-end
  • Deep experience in experience design at scale. You think about spatial flow, environmental storytelling, wayfinding, and the physical logic of how large groups of people move through and experience a space
  • Strong production literacy: you understand budgets, build timelines, fabrication, AV, and the relationship between a creative decision and its production consequence
  • Proven ability to manage high volumes of work across multiple simultaneous programs, adapting quickly as briefs evolve and priorities shift
  • A practical, solutions-oriented creative mindset. You find the opportunity in a constraint and move forward rather than waiting for ideal conditions
  • Experience working directly with clients as a creative partner and educator building trust and creative understanding over time

Preferred

  • Experience working with clients who are newer to agency partnerships, comfortable establishing process, building creative vocabulary, and demonstrating value incrementally
  • Familiarity with large-format production: staging, scenic, environmental design, signage systems, and the creative discipline required to maintain consistency at scale
  • Experience directing globally distributed creative teams across international programs