Global Creative Director, Brand Identity

IBM Corporation•Austin, TX

42d

About The Position

IBM seeks a Global Creative Director to lead Brand Identity and Systems Design within IBM Marketing and Communications. You'll steward one of the world's most recognized and enduring brands-driving its evolution to reflect who IBM is today and where we're headed tomorrow. This is an opportunity to shape brand expression at enterprise scale. You'll bridge brand strategy, product design, marketing, and technology innovation-advancing IBM's design language and visual identity across a complex, global organization. You'll work with the resources, platform, and creative freedom to make lasting impact on how IBM shows up in the world. IBM's legacy is unmatched, but legacy alone doesn't drive relevance. As a company at the forefront of enterprise AI, hybrid cloud, and quantum computing-we need our brand to reflect the pace of our innovation. Your mission is to close the gap between what IBM does and how IBM is perceived-making our brand as dynamic, accessible, and forward-thinking as the technology we build. You'll lead the systems, standards, and creative vision that bring consistency and excellence to every touchpoint. You'll build infrastructure that enables thousands of designers, marketers, and partners to do their best work while maintaining the integrity of the IBM brand. You're a systems thinker with creative vision and operational rigor. You understand that managing an iconic global brand requires both reverence for its equity and courage to evolve it. You've architected design systems at scale, led distributed creative teams, and navigated the organizational complexity of enterprise brand work. You bring a modern approach to brand craft-fluent in contemporary tools and workflows, including AI-augmented design. You see generative tools as accelerators of creative possibility and vehicles to drive productivity. You've experimented hands-on and can articulate both opportunities and guardrails. Most importantly, you're energized by the challenge of transforming a legacy brand for contemporary relevance. You champion a culture of experimentation alongside a commitment to excellence. You build trust through transparency, develop talent through investment, and lead with optimism through change.

Requirements

12+ years in brand design, identity systems, or creative leadership
5+ years managing large, distributed creative teams with proven talent development
Track record architecting and scaling design systems for global, complex organizations
Portfolio showcasing systems thinking, brand strategy, and multi-channel execution
Experience at the intersection of brand, product, and technology
Leaders are expected to spend time with their teams and clients and therefore are generally expected to be in the workplace a minimum of three days a week, subject to business needs
Advanced Figma proficiency: component libraries, variants, automation, plugin development
Hands-on experience with generative AI tools and prompt engineering for visual design
Expert proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Keynote
Exceptional systems thinking: seeing patterns, identifying consolidation opportunities, architecting scalable solutions
Experience translating business strategy into design strategy and articulating design ROI
Track record influencing executives and managing complex stakeholder relationships
Ability to balance brand consistency with flexibility and innovation
Outstanding presentation and storytelling skills; clarity and impact in complex communications
Diplomatic relationship-building across organizational levels
Courageous, principled decision-making on behalf of the brand
Growth mindset with commitment to continuous learning
Optimistic, steady presence inspiring teams through uncertainty

Nice To Haves

Understanding of design operations, digital asset management systems, and workflows enabling large-scale production
Familiarity with design systems (Carbon), data visualization, and product UI/UX
Comfort with code-adjacent work and developer collaboration
Experience with brand architecture challenges including M&A integration

Responsibilities

Partner with executive leadership and corporate brand strategy to shape IBM's brand architecture across the enterprise
Lead brand system evolution for IBM's Design Language, acquisitions, and emerging products
Translate business objectives into actionable brand design strategies that drive measurable outcomes
Serve as a primary design voice in senior stakeholder conversations
Build and nurture design guilds as forums for collaboration and problem-solving
Foster experimentation, knowledge-sharing, and continuous learning across the global design community
Architect comprehensive brand design systems enabling consistent, high-quality work across IBM
Oversee IBM Brand Center, IBM Design Language, and Experience Guides as living platforms
Develop templates, toolkits, component libraries, and automation making excellence accessible
Create governance frameworks balancing consistency with flexibility
Define quality in AI-augmented workflows. Set standards for when AI outputs are appropriate versus when traditional craft is essential.
Pilot new tools and scale what proves valuable, while preserving brand integrity.
Be explicit about transparency, rights and ethics, accessibility, and human creativity's central role. Build systems and principles that enable responsible innovation.
Invest in skill building. Develop competencies in prompt engineering, tool evaluation, model training, output refinement.
Measure holistically--track efficiency gains, asset performance, team satisfaction, and workflow transformation.
Lead and develop a distributed team spanning multiple design specialties
Build cohesive team dynamics across geographies while optimizing for individual growth
Provide coaching, mentorship, and clear expectations enabling excellence
Navigate organizational change while maintaining team morale and operational stability
Maintain relationships with IBM Design, IBM.com, product content teams, and external partners
Collaborate with agencies ensuring brand consistency across channels
Engage with technology teams to build custom tools, plugins, and platforms enhancing design capabilities
Manage always-on programs: iconography, logotypes, merchandise, stationery, templates, and digital assets
Oversee resource allocation, budget management, and partner relationships
Drive awards submissions and PR initiatives elevating IBM external profile in the design community