Creative Director, Growth

Creative Director, Growth

Pelago is the leading specialty substance use care provider, built on the belief that effective treatment means matching care intensity to what each member actually needs rather than defaulting to the most expensive intervention. Our programs guide members through every stage of the substance use spectrum, from unhealthy habits to active use disorders, delivering personalized treatment for tobacco, alcohol, opioid, cannabis, and stimulant use based on individual health, habits, genetics, and goals.

With Sona, our voice-first AI Mental Health Specialist, Pelago now applies that same clinically-driven model to mental health, pairing deep clinical expertise with technology to expand access without compromising care quality. We believe technology should make clinical care more precise and more human, not replace the judgment behind it.

Pelago has scaled to helping hundreds of employers and health plans and has already helped more than 750,000 members better manage their substance use. If you're passionate about AI and making an impact on the health of others, join us and make it happen!

Overview of the Role

Own the creative system behind how Pelago acquires members: Pelago is hiring a Creative Director, Growth to own the full creative arc of our member acquisition funnel - from campaign concept through shipped execution. Reporting to the Head of Growth, this is a true player-coach role where design is your primary craft and campaign concepting is what elevates it into strategy.

You will define what Pelago's growth surface looks, sounds, and feels like - and hold yourself accountable for whether it converts. This is a high-ownership, high-autonomy role where the brief comes from the data, and the creative strategy comes from you.

This is a hybrid role with a high-collaboration rhythm (3 days/week in our NYC office).

In This Role You Will

Set the creative direction

• Own the campaign concepting process end-to-end, from identifying the insight (why this message, for this person, at this moment?) to translating it into a coherent campaign across email, direct mail, SMS, and the landing page.
• Evolve Pelago's growth creative voice: the visual language, messaging principles, and channel-specific standards that make our acquisition surface coherent and differentiated. You're inheriting a working foundation, not a blank page, not a finished system, and raising the bar from there.
• Develop testable creative hypotheses: not "let's try a new email," but "here's the insight, here's the message we haven't tested, here's why I think it converts."

Execute the work

• Own the messaging platform for every campaign: the insight, the angle, the hierarchy of claims across channels. The Senior Content Manager owns copy execution within that direction. You hold the quality bar and can pick up the pen yourself when the stakes are high enough to warrant it.
• You are the designer. Emails, landing page modules, direct mail layouts, campaign visuals: you build these yourself. The expectation is craft, not direction.
• Work hands-on with AI tools across copy ideation, design iteration, and A/B variant production. Not aspirational interest; active practice in your workflow today.

Run creative experimentation

• Run creative experimentation as a discipline alongside the Growth PM, Growth Ops, and Growth Engineer. Every test starts with a hypothesis you can defend, and every result should change the creative strategy underneath, not just the individual asset.
• Treat a flat conversion rate as a brief, not a verdict. If something isn't working, you generate hypotheses before you're asked to and test them in order of conviction.

Lead across the organization

• Translate business goals and funnel data into creative strategy that non-creative stakeholders can understand, question, and trust. You can present a creative rationale to leadership without relying on aesthetic language.
• Partner with Growth Marketing, Client Marketing, Content, and Product to ensure creative is integrated with campaign strategy and channel performance data, not delivered as a finished output after strategy has already been set.
• Build scalable creative infrastructure: messaging frameworks, copy templates, and visual component libraries that reduce recurring production time and give the team a foundation to move faster.
• Manage the operational side of the creative function: agency and freelancer relationships when needed, project prioritization across competing requests, and creative budget. You own the throughput of the creative process, not just the quality of the output.
• Build the creative capability of the team: At the Director level that starts with the Senior Content Manager, but the expectation is you raise the creative bar across everyone you work with, not just your direct reports.

The Background We Are Looking For

• 6+ years of creative experience, including at least 2 years in a lead or director role setting creative direction
• Experience managing or directing a creative or content function, with direct reports preferred
• Strong hands-on design execution across email, landing pages, direct mail, and digital campaigns
• A portfolio demonstrating both strategic campaign thinking and high-quality execution
• Data-driven creative instincts, with experience measuring performance and optimizing for conversion
• Experience using AI tools within a creative workflow
• Experience in B2C, B2B2C, health tech, benefits, or subscription environments preferred
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to present and defend creative strategy to non-creative stakeholders

What You'll Love About Us

We have a whole host of perks for our people! From life essentials to nice-to-haves, there are more than a few good reasons to love working with us. We strive to ensure Pelago employees have equitable access to healthcare, wellbeing, time away, and then some.

• Generous and meaningful equity package
• Full Medical, Dental, & Vision coverage
• 401k Plan
• Unlimited PTO Policy, 10 paid holidays, & company wide "Me Time" Days
• Paid maternity, paternity & new parent leave
• Flexible working environment
• Annual Learning and Development stipend to support continued learning and career development
• Wellness Reimbursement Program
• Access to Reproductive & Family Planning Care
• Substance Use Support for employees and family members

At this time, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position.

The provided range reflects our US target salary range for this full-time position, which is part of our broader total compensation package, including incentive bonus program, stock options, comprehensive benefits, and incentive pay applicable to eligible roles. Individual pay within the range will vary based on a variety of factors like role-related experience and education, internal pay equity, and other relevant business factors. At Pelago, we are committed to an equitable and fair pay philosophy and review total compensation for our employees at least twice a year.

Base Pay Range

$200,000 - $230,000 USD