Head of Creator Marketing

Job description

Substack is building a new economic engine for culture, giving the most interesting people on the internet the power of their own publishing platform. The terms of our culture shouldn't be set by legacy media gatekeepers or chaos-fueling social platforms, but by the people who actively shape it. This role exists to make Substack the obvious home for those people. THE ROLE This is not a creator partnerships role, or influencer marketing, or a PR function. The work is to craft Substack’s product-led story making the most ambitious voices in culture want to create here. When a great writer /creator/podcaster is deciding where to go to build their independence, we want Substack to feel like the only real answer. Your north star will be to drive high-quality creator inbound that converts into paid subscriptions and app users. You will craft and bring to life our creator marketing narrative (through product marketing, programs, and creator campaigns), and build the machine that drives cultural authority for Substack. This is a 0-to-1 role which means the team and infrastructure you'll need doesn't fully exist yet. You'll build it. WHAT YOU'LL OWN The platform story at every altitude. You'll develop and steward the product-led narrative that explains what Substack is and why it matters for creators right now. The narrative work is not only external, it includes internal thought leadership that will keep creator-facing work coherent across product, comms,, and partnerships. The proof-point machine. You'll identify the creator stories that prove what's possible on Substack, and build the operation that gets those stories into the places where creators actually pay attention (press, social, industry moments, word of mouth). You'll know how to make a creator win feel like a signal, not a press release. Cultural authority. You'll partner with our Head of Partnerships and Head of Brand/Editorial to build campaigns, programs, story angles, partnerships, and content that make Substack a persistent presence in the conversations where creators make decisions. What those look like is yours to determine but it needs to earn Substack a seat at the table across priority categories. Creator inbound and conversion. You'll own how the platform story reaches the right people and work across partnerships, comms, and product to close the loop from narrative to pipeline to lifecycle to evangelism. What we're saying, to whom, through which channels, and how we know it's working. The team. You'll build and lead a small, high-craft function that leverages AI to deliver on narrative and a distinctive brand identity at scale. WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR You connect story to business by default. You don't see creativity and growth as separate modes. You care about how a narrative translates to inbound and how a creator win drives signal in the market. You’ve also worked closely enough with product teams to know how a feature becomes a proof point and how to get in front of technical teams early enough to shape/substantiate story rather than react to it. You've operated at a senior level inside an agency, media company, or platform. You've run programs, led teams, and owned business outcomes. You know how to develop and lead from a point of view, and influence excellence in the people around you. You've been a writer, journalist, or have spent time working directly with creators. You understand how creative people make decisions, what earns their trust, and what makes a platform story inspire someone to act. You have legible evidence of taste. Either your own (in what you've written, built, or championed), or in your track record of developing people who have it. Stretch: You've published something yourself. You understand firsthand how stories travel, what makes audiences grow, and what it feels like to build something people show up for consistently. WHY THIS ROLE, WHY NOW Substack has global scale, ambitious creators, and a sharp point of view about what the internet needs to look like (especially in the AI era). This point of view is still getting threaded through our platform and go to market. Building, substantiating and capitalizing on Substack’s role in culture – at a time when so many people are looking for quality, depth, originality – is the opportunity in front of us. This person will play a central role. Substack’s compensation package includes a market-competitive salary, equity for all full-time roles, and exceptional benefits. Our cash compensation salary range for this role is $250,000-310,000. Multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise, determine final offer amounts and may vary from the amounts listed above. Substack is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or transgender status), age, national origin, veteran or disability status. We’re seeking people passionate about enabling independent expression and building a better business model for creators. If you want to see what media, communities, and content can become when unmoored from advertising models, and you have the skills and experience to contribute, we’d love to meet you. Please see our Privacy Notice for details regarding Substack's collection and use of personal information relating to the application and recruitment process by clicking here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UjmY1acxnd27iIde83PxR7XdecR29aIyfkkmEOwAMGY/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.a0wuzmt3mjmm.