Vice President of Brand

Brand Strategy And Visual Identity Leader

Responsible for leading the firm's brand strategy and visual identity, ensuring that HKS is consistently represented as a bold, innovative, and trusted architecture firm across every practice and region. Owns brand positioning, guidelines, creative direction, and brand governance, and ensures brand equity is protected and amplified across all channels. Partners closely with Practice Marketing Directors (PMDs), Centers of Excellence (COEs), and firmwide leadership to make sure the HKS brand shows up consistently while adapting appropriately for market needs.

• Defines, manages, and evolves the HKS brand strategy and architecture
• Ensures brand consistency across all practices, regions, and offices
• Creates brand governance frameworks and enforces adoption across marketing and BD functions
• Leads the development of brand campaigns and creative assets that reinforce HKS's positioning
• Oversees visual identity, design systems, and templates to support both practice and regional needs
• Partners with COEs (Creative, Digital, PR) to ensure brand is integrated across every touchpoint
• Partners with PMDs to translate practice strategies into brand-aligned assets, campaigns, and content
• Ensures practice value propositions are consistently expressed in all materials
• Partners with firmwide leadership to localize the brand for regional relevance while protecting consistency
• Develops scalable brand tools, playbooks, and templates for regional teams and local coordinators
• Provides direct brand support for priority regional campaigns and pursuits
• Defines KPIs to measure brand strength (awareness, perception, consistency)
• Monitors adoption of brand guidelines and consistency of execution across practices and regions
• Reports regularly to CMO and firm leadership on brand performance and alignment
• Collaborates with PR, Digital, and Creative teams to deliver fully integrated campaigns
• Provides high level of interactive service to others, building relationships, addressing identified needs and following through with implementing resolutions for the firm's brand identity system
• Stays current on trends and developments in graphic design
• Models and holds others accountable to the firm's cultural values, including a commitment to quality, innovation, learning and growth
• Oversees and actively invests in the professional development of staff through mentoring, performance management and career planning
• Leads efforts in attracting, training, retaining, growing and recognizing diverse talent
• Manages conflict effectively and encourages a healthy team environment
• Partners with leadership, business development and marketing teams to implement / maintain the strategic plan goals for brand
• Fosters and maintains a collaborative professional working relationship with the project team, including promoting communication and creating approachability
• Takes personal responsibility for fostering a green workplace through sustainable work practices
• Develops budgets and timelines of team projects in collaboration with Chief Marketing Officer
• Responsible for the financial implications of overhead and chargeable time, including accountability to project plan and planned utilization rate
• Collaborates in managing projects to satisfy requirements with best possible ROI and delivering projects on defined budget requirements
• Collaborates with practice leaders and Marketing team to ensure the brand is presented across all tactics and assets in a synchronized and impactful way

Qualifications :

Travel may be required

Base Salary Range : $115k to $175k annually - Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington DC locations only.