Executive Creative Director

Seattle Sounders FC and Seattle Reign FC are entering an exciting new era as one soccer family with a shared commitment of excellence and growth on and off the pitch. Each club has independently forged a rich history of performance while connecting deeply with the community. Our clubs are continually pushing the boundaries of what's possible while fostering an inclusive culture- championing causes and building community connections to expand our reach and impact. Each match is an opportunity to bring together our community, celebrate our resilience, inclusivity, and a commitment to excellence. United in professional dedication- we are two clubs with one shared vision of progress and greatness.

The Executive Creative Director (ECD) is the senior-most creative leader responsible for defining and driving the creative vision for Seattle Sounders FC and Seattle Reign FC. This role shapes how both clubs show up across every touchpointensuring a cohesive, innovative, and culturally relevant presence that deepens fan connection and drives business impact.

The ECD sets the philosophy, standards, and long-term direction of creative across the organization, translating business objectives into breakthrough ideasand ensuring those ideas are executed consistently at a high level. In a fast-paced, high-demand environment, this role brings clarity to complexitymaking decisive calls on priorities, focusing teams on the highest-impact work, and ensuring creative output is both ambitious and delivered at scale.

Owning the end-to-end creative ecosystem across design, video, and production, the ECD is accountable for how work gets done as much as the work itselfestablishing clear direction, aligning resources, and enabling teams to produce best-in-class output consistently.

As a key member of the Marketing leadership team, this role leads and develops a high-performing, multidisciplinary creative group while influencing partners across the organization. The ECD builds alignment, sets expectations, and drives accountabilityensuring work moves forward and delivers, even without direct authority over every stakeholder involved.

This role is for a creative leader who wants to define the future of two iconic clubssomeone who pairs bold vision with decisive execution and is motivated by turning great ideas into real, lasting impact.

Enterprise Leadership & Strategic Influence

• Own the role of creative as a driver of enterprise outcomes.
• Align creative direction to business needs and priorities.
• Set clear context on priorities, tradeoffs, and expectations so teams and partners understand what matters and why.
• Establish and reinforce standards for creative excellence and impact, ensuring consistent execution across all channels.

Creative Vision, Philosophy & Legacy

• Define and lead the organization's creative vision and legacy, shaping a distinctive and enduring brand across all platforms and experiences.
• Define the philosophy and approach to creative work, ensuring alignment with the organization's mission, values, and long-term vision.
• Steward the organization's global creative presence and long-term strategy, ensuring consistency, innovation, and cultural relevance.
• Lead creative across both clubs, curating and guiding brand expression to ensure consistency, quality, and impact.

Building Best-In-Class Teams & Culture

• Build and lead a high-performing creative organization with clear expectations, strong accountability, and a focus on delivering enterprise outcomes.
• Design the organization for both performance and future growth, ensuring the right structure, roles, and talent are in place.
• Set and uphold a high standard for performance and hold leaders and teams accountable for both creative excellence and results.
• Provide direct, actionable feedback and coaching that elevates individual and team performance, building a strong pipeline of future leaders across the organization.
• Foster a culture where people feel valued, engaged, supported, challenged, and responsible for delivering results.

Creative Direction & Production

• Lead creative direction across all video, motion, and content production, including campaign shoots, branded content, social storytelling, and matchday experiences.
• Provide executive-level oversight of creative production from concept through execution, ensuring efficiency, quality, and alignment with creative vision.
• Ensure all visual storytellingfrom short-form social to long-form, broadcast, and live experiencesmeets best-in-class creative standards.
• Champion innovative formats, technologies, and storytelling approaches to elevate the clubs' creative output.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with internal teams to deliver cohesive and impactful brand storytelling.
• Collaborate with revenue-generating teams to ensure creative solutions enhance sponsorship value and fan engagement.
• Collaborate to deliver cohesive and impactful creative for in-venue and live experiences.
• Act as the central creative voice across both clubs, ensuring consistency and quality across all initiatives.

Operational Excellence & Resource Management

• Establish scalable creative processes, workflows, and governance across the organization.
• Own and manage creative budgets, ensuring efficient use of resources to maximize impact.
• Balance long-term brand building with short-term campaign execution and business needs.

Innovation & Cultural

• Stay ahead of trends in sports, design, media, and culture to continuously evolve the creative approach.
• Create culturally relevant, breakthrough work that resonates with fans and strengthens community connection.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience and demonstrated success in creative leadership roles, including operating at a senior level and guiding teams through complex, high-visibility projects.
• Proven ability to set creative direction and standards for a complex organization and ensure consistent execution across multiple platforms and touchpoints.
• Proven track record of leading and developing high-performing, multidisciplinary creative teams.
• Experience overseeing design and video production functions, including content development, live-action production, and delivery at scale.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to connect creative strategy to measurable outcomes.
• Ability to operate from strategy through execution, making decisions and driving clarity in complex, fast-moving environments.
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to align senior stakeholders and influence decisions across the organization.
• Experience managing budgets, external partners, and production resources with discipline and focus on impact.
• Excellent communication and executive stakeholder management skills.
• Comfortable making decisions, resolving tradeoffs, and challenging work to maintain a high standard.
• Collaborative, forward-thinking, and comfortable challenging the status quo.
• Strong understanding of sports, culture, and storytelling, and how creative work drives brand, fan, and revenue growth.
• Committed to principles of diversity, equity and inclusion, and to living organizational values and driving the organization's mission to Create Moments, Enrich Lives, and Unify & Uplift Through Soccer
• Proficiency in modern creative tools and platforms (Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, etc.)
• Deep understanding of modern video production ecosystems, including editing, motion, and finishing tools (e.g., Premiere, After Effects, Resolve), with fluency in emerging AI-driven creative technologies (e.g., Runway, Midjourney, generative video platforms).

Work Environment

• This is a hybrid position working from home and from our Headquarters & Training Facility in Renton WA and attending matches at the club's various facilities in market, and traveling to other club facilities as needed.
• Must be able to work a flexible schedule, including evenings, weekends, and holidays as needed.
• Must reside within Washington state upon date of hire.
• Must be able to facilitate own local travel.
• Must be eligible to work in the US without sponsorship.

Compensation, Benefits and Perks

• We offer competitive compensation and an engaging, supportive environment that prioritizes the health and well-being of our people.
• The annual salary range for this position is $175,000-$210,000. Positioning within the range at time of offer is based on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, internal equity, and current market conditions.
• In addition to financial compensation, we provide a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your overall well-being and professional growth, including:
• Comprehensive Healthcare Coverage: We offer 100% employer-sponsored medical, dental, and vision premiums for you and your dependents. For employees enrolled in our HSA healthcare plan, annual employer contributions to a Health Savings Account (HSA) $1,000 for employee-only coverage and $2,000 for spouse or