Senior Director Creative Services in Washington, District of Columbia at The Aspen Institute

ABOUT US

The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization whose purpose is to ignite human potential to build understanding and create new possibilities for a better world. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve society’s greatest challenges. It is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, as well as an international network of partners.

ABOUT THIS ROLE

The Senior Director of Creative Services leads the Institute's fee-for-service creative division — an in-house agency that produces design, production, events, AV, and brand experiences for the Aspen Institute and its 40+ programs. This role is equal parts client strategy, business development, and operational leadership: building and managing program relationships, scoping and delivering high-quality creative work, and ensuring the division runs as a sustainable, revenue-generating service.

The Senior Director works in close partnership with the VP, the Director of Enterprise & Editorial, and the broader communications leadership team to ensure creative execution is aligned with institutional strategy and editorial direction. A significant part of this role involves serving as the producing and logistics partner for the VP's signature creative projects, including the B Sides podcast and the Program History Series.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

Client Strategy & Program Relationships

• Serve as the primary relationship manager between Creative Services and the Institute's 40+ programs, building trusted partnerships that translate program needs into well-scoped, high-quality creative engagements.
• Lead the scoping for fee-for-service engagements, overseeing the team’s intake and proposal processes, ensuring that program requests are assessed accurately, priced appropriately, and resourced realistically.
• Maintain a clear view of the division's capacity and pipeline, proactively managing demand against available resources and flagging constraints to the VP and Director of Operations.
• Serve as the senior point of contact for programs during creative engagements, ensuring expectations are set clearly and deliverables are met with consistency and quality.
• Identify opportunities to deepen and expand Creative Services relationships with programs, growing the division's fee-for-service revenue in alignment with the department's service model.
• Represent Creative Services in cross-departmental planning conversations, ensuring the division's capabilities and capacity are well understood across the Institute.

Events & AV Division Leadership

• Provide strategic oversight for the AV and Events function, including the Architex vendor relationship.
• Ensure the events team delivers consistently high-quality, on-brand experiences across Institute-sponsored events, fee-for-service engagements, and program partnerships.
• Work with the Director, A/V, to set standards, build capacity, and evolve the events offering in line with the department's service model and the Institute's growing events mandate.
• Evaluate and optimize the balance between internal event production capacity and external vendor support, including ongoing assessment of the Architex relationship and associated costs.
• Oversee staffing plans, production timelines, and vendor coordination for major events and convenings in partnership with the director of AV.

Brand Standards & Quality Oversight

• Steward the Aspen Institute's brand standards across Creative Services outputs, ensuring visual and experiential consistency across design, production, print, digital, video, and events deliverables.
• Oversee quality control across division outputs, establishing clear review and approval processes that maintain a high standard without creating production bottlenecks.
• Work with the Director, Creative Services, to ensure design and production work meets brand, accessibility, and quality standards across all program and institutional engagements.
• Identify opportunities to strengthen and evolve brand application across the division's growing portfolio of services, including events, AV, and digital production.

Creative Projects: Executive Producer

• Serve as the primary producing and logistics partner for the VP's signature projects, including the B Sides podcast, the Program History Series of on-stage conversations, and other editorial and creative initiatives.
• Manage production logistics, scheduling, vendor coordination, and quality control for podcast episodes and Program History Series events, ensuring a seamless experience from planning through delivery.
• Proactively advance projects between formal touchpoints with the VP — anticipating production needs, flagging risks, and keeping timelines on track without requiring constant direction.
• Coordinate with the Director of Enterprise & Editorial and relevant team members to ensure creative production is aligned with editorial strategy and institutional messaging.
• Support the development of emerging creative formats as the VP's project portfolio grows, building the operational infrastructure needed to execute new initiatives efficiently.

Team Leadership & Division Management

• Provide direct leadership and management for the Director, Creative Services and Event Production Director, fostering their professional development and ensuring clarity of roles and accountability.
• Leads and sets agenda for all Creative Services team meetings.
• Build a collaborative, high-performing division culture that balances service excellence with operational sustainability.
• Partner with the Director of Operations on budget management, vendor contracts, capacity planning, and operational infrastructure for Creative Services.
• Manage and develop the division's specialized vendor relationships, ensuring external partners are well-briefed, well-managed, and delivering consistent quality.

Fee-for-Service Revenue & Sustainability

• Own the Creative Services revenue model, tracking fee-for-service income against targets and identifying opportunities to grow the division's earned revenue contribution to the department.
• Develop and maintain clear, transparent pricing structures for Creative Services engagements, ensuring the division's work is fairly valued and consistently scoped.
• Partner with the Director of Operations on financial planning and budget management for Creative Services, ensuring the division operates within its budget envelope while delivering against its service commitments.
• Identify opportunities to expand the division's service offerings in response to program demand, institutional priorities, and emerging creative needs.

Brand Extension & Partnership Development

• Provide strategic and business development oversight for the Aspen Institute Store, ensuring it functions as both a brand visibility vehicle and a revenue-generating asset. Work with Director, Creative Services on product strategy, merchandising, and audience engagement — including the integration of Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies merchandise as a founding partnership, with an eye toward deepening that collaboration across brand, audience, and revenue dimensions over time.
• Serve as the strategic lead for the Aspen Meadows Resort partnership, coordinating across teams to ensure the Institute's story is told compellingly to resort visitors. Christian Jones and the AV & Events team own production of in-room videos and visitor-facing assets; the Director of Enterprise & Editorial owns narrative and content marketing strategy. Kristina's role is to hold the partnership relationship, ensure the teams are aligned and resourced, and advance the overall initiative.
• Evaluate new brand extension opportunities as they arise, assessing their potential to advance the Institute's mission, strengthen brand visibility, and generate revenue.

Cross-Departmental Collaboration

• Collaborate closely with the Director of Enterprise & Editorial to ensure creative execution is aligned with institutional editorial strategy, brand voice, and content priorities — including shared stewardship of the Aspen Meadows storytelling partnership.
• Partner with the Director of Media Relations to ensure creative assets support media and communications goals across Institute programs and campaigns.
• Work with the Director of Operations to ensure Creative Services engagements are well-tracked, properly contracted, and financially sound.
• Participate in department leadership planning, contributing the Creative Services perspective to cross-functional decision-making and institutional priority-setting.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO THRIVE

• Bachelor's degree in communications, marketing, business administration or a related field; master's degree preferred.
• Minimum 15 years of progressive leadership experience overseeing communications, marketing, events, or agency operations, with significant experience managing multidisciplinary teams.
• Demonstrated success leading an in-house creative agency, client services organization, or comparable fee-for-service business model.
• Proven ability to build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders and translate organizational priorities into strategic creative solutions.
• Strong business acumen with experience managing budgets, revenue targets, pricing models, forecasting, and financial performance for service-based operations.
• Experience developing and implementing operational processes that improve efficiency, resource allocation, service delivery, and organizational scalability.
• Demonstrated expertise in capacity planning, project prioritization, and managing multiple high-profile initiatives in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience leading creative, design, production, events, audiovisual, or digital teams while maintaining high standards for quality, brand consistency, and customer service.
• Strong background managing vendor and consultant relationships, including contract negotiation, procurement, performance management, and cost optimization.
• Strong strategic planning and organizational leadership skills with the ability to balance long-term vision and day-to-day execution.
• Excellent communication, presentation, negotiation, and relationship management skills, with experience collaborating effectively across executive leadership, cross-functional teams, and external partners.
• Proven ability to lead organizational change, build high-performing teams, coach senior leaders, and foster a collaborative, service-oriented culture.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to use data and performance metrics to inform operational and strategic decisions.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The Aspen Institute offers a generous benefits package including health, dental, vision, and prescription benefits, retirement benefits, and paid leave.

The Aspen Institute is an Equal Opportunity Employer and complies with all District and federal laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or protected veteran or disabled status and will not be discriminated against.

The Aspen Institute welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs, including the interview process. If you would like to request accommodations or hav questions about accessibility, please email hrsupport@aspeninstitute.org or call 202-736-2127 in advance of your visit. Requests for ASL or CART services should be made at least two weeks in advance when possible. We will make every effort to fulfill requests, subject to availability.