Trustmark Voluntary Benefit Solutions is a division of Trustmark Companies, a leading insurer, benefits administrator, and wellness company.  Trustmark Voluntary Benefit Solutions has been serving the voluntary benefit market for nearly a century and has a history of long term relationships that have been established for over fifty plus years.  As one of the leading companies in Voluntary Benefits, Trustmark is committed to providing quality voluntary benefits including Universal Life with Long Term Care, Critical Illness, Disability and Wellness for employers with 100 or more employees.  Whether developing and fostering business relationships with our customers or developing and fostering careers, we are the experts in building partnerships with customers and with our employees.

We currently have a position open for a Senior Director, Creative Services.  This is a hybrid position at our Lake Forest, IL corporate office location.

THE ROLE:

A Key leader for VB Marketing and driver of our visual brand expression and brand guidelines across all business units. Will be both an inspiring team leader and a master of the craft, pushing the team and project work to new heights. They will provide mentoring to a team of print, digital, video, & interactive designers and shared services team members. Directs and manages an internal creative services team that produces all forms of campaign materials from brochures and presentations to multichannel campaigns employing web presences, video, email, and social assets. Oversees and engages in the creation of storyboards, treatments, scripts, photo direction, wireframes, prototypes, campaign mockups and presentations to internal clients. They will own brand expression and be responsible for reviewing all team output to ensure it adheres to brand and best-in-class creative industry standards. Working closely with the members of the VB Creative Services team, they will ensure branding is cohesive and tell a consistent brand story. They will be able to own projects, make good decisions – identifying issues before they turn into problems, proactively collaborating to reach resolution, and exposing the right topics to senior-most leadership. Keeps their finger on the pulse of disruptive technologies & emerging capabilities to create next-generation content that maximizes interest and engagement with our audiences.

THE SPECIFICS:

MANAGEMENT: Develop an interdisciplinary team of designers & creators as thinkers, leaders, and innovators through leadership, meaningful feedback, and ongoing mentorship. Work with Executive Creative Director to determine the overall goals of the creative team that meet business objectives and empower the group to deliver compelling brand experiences to our customers.

ART DIRECTION: Provide art direction via design brief and dialog. Lead brainstorming efforts & ensure a constant pipeline of concepts & inspiration. Create and direct the team towards the creation of concepts for presentation & final output – storyboards, treatments, scripts, photo direction sketches or go-bys, wireframes, prototypes, & campaign mockups. Provide art direction through the course of each project to refine creative strategy, story arc, design layouts, typography, image (photo, video, animation, etc.) to achieve the highest output.

BRAND STEWARDSHIP: Own brand expression and review team output to ensure it adheres to brand and best-in-class creative industry standards. Work closely with the others to ensure digital-specific expression of our brand in our owned entities is cohesive with the broader, cross-channel vision. Perform ongoing updates to brand standards communications, guides, and templates to drive broad understanding and adherence across the company.

PROJECT OWNERSHIP: In coordination with project managers, oversee multiple projects, partners, and team members. Identify issues before they turn into problems, proactively collaborate to reach resolution, and expose the right topics to senior-most leadership. Ensure quality on each project for on-time, on-budget, on-brief, and on-par creative. Drive usage of project management and creative workflow tools to improve efficiency and time management.

COMMUNICATION: Communicate overall creative strategy and vision, process and standards, and objectives with strong articulation skills whether written or communicated orally.  Develop and maintain strong partner relationships across the organization, and especially with business unit marketing team. Articulate point of view utilizing visual storytelling to design team, leadership, and partners across the organization.

INNOVATION & INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP: Define & educate on design and brand standards from the beginning of strategy all the way through completion and outcome measurements. Elevate strategic thought and design processes within the in-house studio. Investigate, source, and employ a broad set of tools to best solve for end-to-end, omni-channel content creation. Continuously seek out new techniques and tools to help drive creative transformation and excelled differentiation. This includes exploring new frontiers of disruptive technology and next-generation capabilities to deliver maximally engaging content for our customers.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor’s Degree in design, advertising, or marketing or equivalent experience
• 7+ years of experience designing omni-channel marketing, experiential, and multimedia campaigns
• 5+ years in a creative leadership role with proven track record of growing careers and teams
• Experienced implementing and using creative project management/workflow management software to manage people, projects, deadlines and creative deliverables
• Online portfolio showcasing multiple types of projects and solutions across channels
• Proven track record of creating engaging marketing and communication content for B2B & B2C audiences
• Mastery in the Adobe Creative Suite, Mac OSX
• Brainstorming, sketching, and prototyping skills
• Mastery in design concepts (graphic design, layout & grids, typography, color, imagery, etc.)
• Mastery in all multimedia, video & photography direction from treatments, scripts and storyboards through production & post-production
• Solid presentation & communication skills that establish trust with partners and teammates 
• Working knowledge of digital UX design best practices
• Proficiency in digital marketing tactics (email, display & video ads, organic & paid social media)
• Skilled at anticipating project needs, prioritizing multiple deliverables, working with outside vendors and internal staff to successfully execute the projects on time
• Working capability in Microsoft Office and windows OS
• Ability to develop and maintain excellent working relationships with internal staff and third-party vendors
• Detail-oriented and able to organize large projects to stay on task and keep others on task, as needed
• Ability to learn quickly and be comfortable asking questions and seeking answers.

BONUS POINTS:

• Experience using project management software such as Asana, Robohead or Workfront
• Proficiency in a variety of digital design tools such as Sketch and Adobe XD
• Experience designing templates for marketing automation platforms such as MarketingCloud
• Agile scrum ways of working
• MBA or Master’s degree in Design
• Experience in insurance, health care delivery & financial sectors
• Agency experience

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability.

Trustmark is pleased to have earned recognition from the Chicago Tribune as a Chicago Top Workplaces 2020 Award winner.  

Required Skills Required Experience