Creative Lead, Experiential Marketing

Location: San Francisco, California, United States of America

The Zendesk Creative Team brings Zendesk to life by designing high-impact brand moments that are aligned with our voice, look, and feel, and stand out from the competition. We ensure a cohesive and consistent brand experience through our guidelines, creative direction, and partnership with agencies and Marketing business partners.

As the Creative Lead for Experiential Marketing, you will enhance our creative platform across both digital and in-person experiences. Your focus will be on fostering human imagination, innovation, and storytelling to create engaging interactions that align with Zendesk’s brand and business goals.

This role is part of Creative Leadership and sits in close collaboration with the Experiential Marketing team, the Creative Studio, Communications, the executive leadership team (ELT), combining strategic leadership with a hands-on approach to create world-class immersive experiences that shape the way people interact with our brand.

Key responsibilities

• Own the design system for Zendesk’s event architecture
• Define and steward a cohesive system of visual principles, templates, and components that scales across event types and channels.
• Translate brand strategy and event objectives into connected experiences across presentations, livestreams, and in-person environments.
• Set clear guidance and quality standards so internal teams and agency partners can apply the system consistently while making each event feel distinct.
• Deliver creative excellence at our flagship events
• Lead creative direction for Relate, Showcase, AI Summit, and other flagship events, translating event strategy into memorable customer experiences.
• Bring storytelling to life across the full attendee journey: demand generation, registration, in-person and digital experiences.
• Partner with the Experiential Marketing team and external agencies from concept through execution to ensure every detail meets a high creative bar.
• Lead through teamwork and creative partnership
• Build strong partnerships across Creative, Experiential Marketing, agencies, Communications, executive leaders, and business stakeholders to align the work around shared event goals.
• Create an environment of candor, respect, psychological safety, and constructive critique.
• Guide and mentor creative partners, share best practices, and help the broader team deliver its best work.

Skills required

• Strong expertise in event branding with a focus on the customer experience
• Understanding of production processes
• Experience with brand activations and attendee engagement
• Experience with cross-functional group facilitation, creative ideation, executive engagement, and strategic concept development
• Strong business acumen skills, including financial literacy, executive presence, and project management
• Customer-obsession, entrepreneurial spirit, persistence, bias towards action and a well-rounded skill set
• Ability to translate complex business problems into inspiring creative opportunities
• Provide clear creative direction and feedback to internal creative team and agency partners
• Willingness to travel to site visits and/or on-site events
• Proven ability to work across timezones effectively
• Experience using generative AI tools as part of the creative process
• Proficiency in Adobe, Figma, and Google apps

#LI-WO1

The US annualized base salary range for this position is $179,000.00-$269,000.00. This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives. While this range reflects the minimum and maximum value for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations, the offer for the successful candidate for this position will be based on job related capabilities, applicable experience, and other factors such as work location. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only (or OTE for commissions based roles), and do not include bonus, benefits, or related incentives.

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to [email protected] with your specific accommodation request.