Social Creative Lead

Koala is a global furniture brand bringing Australian design and innovation to the world. We create forward-thinking products that solve problems for people and homes everywhere, driven by our purpose to make the world a more comfortable place.

We’ve always believed in doing things differently, whether in the way we develop products, how we do people and culture, or the way we bring the brand to life. That mindset has fuelled our growth, helping us disrupt categories in ways that are creative, bold and often unexpected. While we’re a household name in Australia, our journey on the global stage is only just beginning.

Since launching in 2015, our furniture has reached homes across Australia, Japan, the US and the UK. As a B Corp-certified, customer-obsessed, and data-led company, we’re committed to revolutionising furniture for generations to come through design, innovation, and meaningful sustainability.

Role Description

Koala is a global furniture brand with strong Australian roots, and this role is central to our growth in the US market. The Creative Lead owns the ideation and execution of social-first creative across organic and paid channels, ensuring Koala’s work is culturally relevant, platform-native, and built to drive both brand impact and commercial outcomes.

This is a senior, hands-on role. You are as comfortable generating ideas and building concepts as you are overseeing production and shipping high volumes of creative. You lead the local creative team and external partners to deliver work that is fast, distinctive, and designed to perform at scale across social platforms.

What Social-First Means At Koala:

We are embarking on a new era of the Koala brand, while going back to our roots as disruptive, unconventional marketers that reach our audience where they are in new and unexpected ways.

In 2026 at Koala, social-first thinking spans organic, creator, and paid social working together. In practice, that can look like any of the following:

• A live shopping event or activation campaign designed to be shared on organic and amplified through paid social

• Paid social creative that does not feel like ads, but like content people would stop for anyway, built to earn attention first and optimise second

• Clever content narratives and tactics that can live on our channels, or an army of creator accounts

• A timely post on our own feed that gives us cred amongst the very online, or starts a conversation more broadly in culture

A social-first thinker at Koala has flexibility to be a full-on bed-rotter, attention span/algorithm pirate, and full-stack Creative/Creator hybrid that can direct ideas and eyeballs. This is a covetable social role for people looking for minimal internal red tape, and maximum creative permission with executive support. 

Key Responsibilities

Creative Ideation and Execution

• Own creative process and execution for the US market across organic and paid social

• Develop and lead social-first concepts that feel native to platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and emerging formats

• Translate brand and product stories into thumb-stopping social ideas that balance entertainment, clarity, and conversion

• Oversee end-to-end creative delivery, from concepting and scripting through to design, editing, and final output

• Partner closely with the Head of Growth and Growth Lead to align social creative with growth objectives, media strategy, and commercial priorities

• Build creative frameworks and repeatable formats that enable fast iteration, testing, and scale across paid and organic social

• Ensure creative is optimised by platform, audience, and objective, without losing consistency of tone or brand voice

Team and Stakeholder Management

• Lead, coach, and develop the US creative team, including creative strategists, designers, copywriters, and editors

• Work with the global brand team to adapt and localise global brand assets for local marketing channels

• Manage external creators, agencies, photographers, videographers, and other freelancers when required 

• Own creative budgets, negotiate rates, and balance speed, quality, and cost to maximise ROI

Creative Operations and Standards

• Identify and resolve creative, design, or production challenges quickly and pragmatically

• Develop and maintain design specifications and ensure compliance with relevant US standards

• Build efficient creative workflows that enable rapid iteration, testing, and learning without compromising quality
  

Ideal background

• An Experienced Creative Lead: You have 5M views of experience leading social-first creative across organic and paid channels. You’ve owned ideas end to end, from concept and scripting through to execution and iteration. You are comfortable setting creative direction for social, not just adapting ideas built for other channels.

• A Natural Experimenter and Early Adopter: You are curious by default and comfortable operating at the edge of what’s new. You enjoy experimenting with emerging platforms, formats, and tools, including AI and new production workflows, and you are comfortable learning in public. You test, learn, and adapt quickly, using experimentation to stay ahead of platform shifts rather than waiting for playbooks to be written.

• A Social-First Creative Operator: You deeply understand how platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and emerging social formats actually work. You know how creative needs to be structured, paced, and produced to earn attention in-feed, not just look good in a deck. You can flex ideas across organic and paid social without losing clarity, craft, or intent.

• Insight-Led and Audience-Obsessed: You are tuned into culture, behaviour, and platform trends, and you know how to turn insight into social ideas people want to watch, share, and engage with. Your work is grounded in audience understanding and performance signals, not personal taste or recycled trends.

• A Leader and Collaborator: You’ve led or grown social creative teams and know how to give clear direction, raise the bar, and maintain momentum in a fast-moving environment. You work closely with marketing, growth, brand, and media teams to ensure social creative ladders back to broader business goals.

• Commercially Minded: You understand how social creative drives growth. You are comfortable balancing brand building and performance, organic and paid, speed and quality, to deliver measurable outcomes across social channels.

• Comfortable With Ambiguity: You thrive in fast-moving environments where platforms, formats, and priorities change quickly. You are energised by blank pages and evolving briefs, and you can create structure, repeatable formats, and momentum where none exists yet.
  

Treehouse Perks and Privileges

Koala is only great when its employees are happy — and we’re one happy bunch!

• Work From SofaBed (WFB) - Most of our team is located in LA and surrounding areas, but also happy for you to be fully remote.

• Take a break - Generous time off - Koala life leave, volunteer, parental, and more to help keep your work-life balance, balanced.

• Surprise & delight - The two-word combo at the core of everything we do. All Koalas can expect to enjoy free Koala products with ‘mates rates’ for your friends and fam.

• Support & wellbeing - Our employee experience respects and embraces all families, formed, found, and evolving. You’ll have access to our Employee Assistance Program, which includes unlimited sessions for financial, work, relationship, family or wellbeing support.

• Competitive 401k matching and comprehensive Anthem private health insurance plans.

• Accelerate your career - via our Learning Management platform Juno, as well as individual and team growth budgets and dedicated days.

• Short-term incentive plans ensure you benefit as Koala succeeds!

• Community & connection - We believe that simply doing ‘no harm’ isn’t good enough So, how are we doing our part? We believe that simply doing ‘no harm’ isn’t good enough So, how are we doing our part? BCorp Certified, WWF Partnership, volunteer days, a member of SoftLanding, 1%and so much more.

• All in all, the Koala Kommunity is a great place to hang out and belong to!

Koalities We Look For

At Koala, we do things a little differently and we don’t shy away from the fact that we expect a lot from our employees! We are ambitious. We are curious. We are selfless. We want you to challenge expectations, always look to make a difference and give us something different from the norm. We want people that bring great energy, that have a long-game focus and are always trying to find new angles and approaches to the way we work. We're a team full of entrepreneurial spirit and have a relentless focus on 'what's next' but while always reviewing 'what's been done' and learning, growing and adapting. We're confident, but NEVER arrogant and we adapt to change like Steve Smith under a short ball (Aussie cricket reference FYI). Honesty and empathy drive everything we do, as well as a total focus on exceeding our customers’ expectations. So if you feel like this could be you... well what the bloody hell are you waiting for? Drop us a line, and let's see what you've got! ;)

There’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ candidate, Koala is a place where everyone has opportunity. So however you identify and whatever background you bring with you, please apply if this is a role that would make you excited to come into work every day. We’re an equal opportunity employer, and recognize that a diverse workforce is crucial to our success as a business.

To read more, check out our careers, LinkedIn, or the great work we do with Work180.