Director, HP Studio Design

Director, HP Studio Design

Description -

HP Studio is looking for a Director, Design to lead the brand and design function within marketing. This role is the creative and quality authority for an embedded in-house agency, responsible for setting the standards that govern how work gets made, reviewed, and delivered. The portfolio is focused primarily on mid-to-lower funnel assets — sizzle videos, eTail and ecommerce assets, social content, retail materials, sales enablement decks, and campaign toolkits — the work that directly touches customers and drives conversion.

Success in this role depends as much on relationships as it does on craft. You will work across a complex matrix of cross-functional partners including brand, product marketing, sales, regional teams, and external agency partners. Here your ability to build trust, influence without authority, and navigate competing priorities will be as important as your creative judgment. This is not a role where design operates in isolation; it lives at the intersection of brand strategy, marketing execution, and business objectives.

The ideal candidate is equal parts creative leader and strategic partner: someone who elevates the craft, manages the quality bar for a distributed production team, and keeps business objectives at the center of every decision.

Key Responsibilities

Brand, Design & Creative Quality

• Own and elevate design quality across all mid-to-lower funnel marketing deliverables, including sizzle videos, eTail assets, social banners, retail materials, sales decks, and campaign toolkits.
• Set, document, and enforce creative standards and quality benchmarks for the embedded in-house agency, ensuring consistency and excellence across all output.
• Serve as the final quality gate for creative work — establishing review processes, critique cadences, and approval workflows that maintain the bar without creating bottlenecks.
• Champion brand integrity across all touchpoints, ensuring that design decisions reinforce brand positioning and visual identity even in performance-driven, lower-funnel contexts.
• Bring creative strategy to life — translating business briefs and product narratives into compelling, high-quality design solutions.

Cross-Functional Partnership & Stakeholder Management

• Build and maintain strong working relationships with cross-functional partners across brand, product marketing, sales, regional marketing teams, and executive stakeholders.
• Serve as the primary design and creative partner to marketing stakeholders across business units, proactively aligning on priorities and managing expectations.
• Navigate stakeholder relationships with confidence — balancing creative vision with business needs, influencing without alienating, and earning a seat at the table through demonstrated value.
• Collaborate closely with external agency partners, ensuring alignment on creative direction, quality standards, and brand consistency.
• Translate feedback and competing priorities from multiple stakeholders into clear creative direction for the team.

Team Management & Development

• Directly manage Senior Designers and additional team members, providing mentorship, feedback, and career development.
• Foster a culture of creative excellence, collaboration, and accountability within the design team.
• Coach and develop team members on both craft and soft skills, building a high-performing creative function.

Strategic & Operational Impact

• Partner with marketing leadership to evolve the role of the design function from a production-oriented service to a true creative thought partner.

• Balance the trade-off between design ambition and business constraints, making pragmatic decisions that maintain quality.

• Support the Adobe Transformation initiative, including template migration, pipeline development, and process improvement.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in design, creative direction, or a related field, with progressive leadership responsibility.

• Proven track record of ensuring design excellence across a diverse set of mid-to-lower funnel marketing deliverables (video, eTail/ecommerce, social, retail, sales enablement).

• Experience managing creative quality and setting standards for an in-house agency, embedded studio, or production-heavy creative team.

• Experience guiding and managing teams across multiple creative disciplines: copy, photography, graphic design, and production.

• Demonstrated ability to bring creative strategy to life — not just executing briefs, but shaping the creative approach.

• Exceptional cross-functional partnership skills — prov