Marketing Brand and Creative Team Leader - Albuquerque - Rio Grande

Description

Brand and Creative Team Lead
Location: Albuquerque, NM (on-site) Department: Marketing Reports To: Marketing Director
Onsite - Albuquerque, NM
The Brand & Creative Team Lead supports and elevates Rio Grande's visual identity, creative excellence, and storytelling across all customer touchpoints. This is a hands-on creative leadership role. The ideal candidate brings strong design abilities, a refined creative eye, awareness of industry and cultural trends, and the ability to guide a multidisciplinary team toward thoughtful, high-impact work.
Reporting to the Marketing Director, this role partners closely with the Marketing Team (Growth & Demand Team and Integrated Marketing Team), Merchandising, and Sales to deliver cohesive, on-brand campaigns that resonate with B2B audiences ranging from artisans to manufacturers. The Brand & Creative Team Lead will translate strategic direction from the Marketing Director into exceptional marketing materials, while managing designers, photographers, writers, and a videographer and actively contributing to day-to-day creative production.
What You'll Do:
Hands-On Creative Execution
Produce high-quality design work across digital, print, and branded content, this is not an oversight-only role.
Concept and design creative assets for campaigns, landing pages, product launches, videos, social media, and internal storytelling.
Translate strategic briefs and direction from the Marketing Director into compelling creative concepts aligned with brand voice and business goals.
Review and refine creative deliverables with strong attention to detail, ensuring brand standards, clarity, and consistency.
Stay ahead of design and content trends, proactively bringing forward fresh perspectives, inspiration, and competitive insights.
Creative Leadership & Direction
Leadership & Development:

• Provide day-to-day leadership, direction, and support to the Brand & Creative team.
• Conduct regularly scheduled 1:1s and facilitate professional development.
• Foster a collaborative and accountable team culture focused on results and continuous improvement.

Ensure brand consistency and integrity across all touchpoints.
Uphold quality standards for creative output, establishing processes that support efficiency and excellence.
Partner with Integrated Marketing Team and Growth & Demand Team to align creative assets with campaign strategy, audience insights, and performance goals.
Collaborate with Sales, Merchandising, and eCommerce/IT on initiatives requiring design or creative storytelling.
Balance fast-paced production needs with long-term brand-building initiatives.
What You'll Need:
Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Design, Visual Communications, or a related field.
6+ years of experience in creative roles, ideally with at least 2-3 years leading or mentoring a creative or design team.
A robust portfolio demonstrating hands-on design work (digital, print, campaigns, visual systems, etc.).
Expertise in Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign); familiarity with Figma or similar tools is a plus.
Ability to critique work with clarity, empathy, and high standards.
Understanding of modern design trends, brand behavior, typography, layout, and visual hierarchy.
Experience producing creative for omnichannel marketing (email, digital ads, social, web, print).
Ability to translate business objectives and marketing strategy into compelling visuals that drive engagement and conversion.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills; ability to partner across marketing, merchandising, sales, and leadership.
Experience in B2B, retail, or eCommerce environments a plus.
The successful candidate will enjoy a rewarding, challenging, and principled work environment. Please visit for more information on our company
Rio Grande is a metal-free environment within our operations areas.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging:
Guided by our core values, Rio Grande is committed to treating all people with dignity and respect. We are an equal-opportunity employer with a zero-tolerance policy for harassment or discrimination of any kind. As an advocate for equity and equality, we hire, train, and promote qualified people of all backgrounds. We consider employment candidates without regard to race, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other underrepresented class. We value our associates and have won the yearly Healthiest Places to Work and Family Friendly Business awards on multiple occasions.
The Reward:
Rio Grande provides a generous benefit package for full-time (30+ hours a week) associates that includes:

• Medical plan with low premium rates and no high deductible (includes dental and vision) and telemedicine
• 401(k) matching program
• Paid time-off benefits, plus an additional seven paid holidays
• Paid life insurance and optional additional life insurance
• Long-term and short-term disability
• Flexible spending account
• Pet insurance
• Tuition reimbursement
• On-site gym and company wellness program
• Bereavement leave
• Employee discounts at Rio Grande
• Local and national discounts on various travel and entertainment
• Competitive compensation, including an opportunity to share in the profits

Our associates strive for joint accountability. We work together for the success of our stakeholders, and we provide a thoughtful, fun, and creative environment to support them. We encourage professional and personal development through a variety of training opportunities and a focus on promoting from within.
The Company:
Established in 1944, Rio Grande, a Berkshire-Hathaway manufacturer/distributor, has thousands of valued customers around the world. We are a principle-based company with a highly evolved team-based environment. We can show you how a profoundly effective organization lives these values every day. You can find our guiding principles, The 3 R's, Respect, Responsibility and Results, on our website as well as information about our community support and how we protect the environment.