Senior Manager, Digital Creative

About the Team

The Customer Experience (Marketing) team works to showcase our brand through the lens of expertise and love. They work to provide a personalized experience for our consumers backed by best-in-class, data-driven marketing capabilities. The Customer Experience team focuses across 4 departments including, Marketing, Creative, Communications, and our Loyalty & CRM team. Everyone brings their own point of view to create a unique experience for the pets and pet parents.

Collaborative Work Environment:
At Pet Smart, teamwork and connection are core to how we thrive. This role is based at our Phoenix Home Office, with an expectation of working a minimum of four days in the office each week. In a standard work week, associates may work up to one remote “flex day” (with leader approval). Our hybrid approach is designed to foster strong collaboration while also supporting flexibility and individual success.

Pet Smart is building a modern, high-performing in-house creative organization—one that owns outcomes, moves fast, and leverages innovation to scale impact. As Senior Manager, Digital Creative
, you are a proactive creative leader who blends strong creative judgment, operational discipline, and an AI-forward mindset to deliver exceptional digital work.

As Senior Manager, Digital Creative
, you serve as a senior creative leader with significant scope, influence, and ownership. In many organizations, this level of responsibility aligns to an Associate Creative Director; at Pet Smart, we’ve intentionally structured the Senior Manager role to lead with both creative authority and operational accountability.

This role is for someone who thinks ahead, takes ownership, communicates with confidence, and is constantly exploring smarter, faster, more effective ways to create—without compromising quality.

What You’ll Do

• Lead and deliver digital creative across web, app, email, animation, and select special projects
  , from concept through deployment
• Own creative quality, consistency, and on-time delivery across all assigned work
• Set clear direction, anticipate risks, and proactively solve problems before they slow the work
• Develop and deliver strategic creative solutions that meet business objectives while adhering to brand standards, budgets, and timelines
• Balance hands-on design with people leadership, coaching, and mentorship
• Lead, mentor, and allocate work for a team of 2–5 creatives, supporting growth, quality, and delivery
• Partner closely with Creative, Marketing, eCommerce, and Creative Operations teams
• Translate briefs and business goals into compelling, on-brand creative solutions
• Present work with clarity and confidence to peers, senior leaders, and executive stakeholders
• Champion AI-enabled tools, animation, and new technologies to improve efficiency, scale output, and evolve creative execution.
• Identify opportunities to streamline workflows, optimize processes, and help the team work smarter and faster. Don’t wait to be told, go ahead and make it happen.
• Stay ahead of digital, UX, animation, and creative trends—continuously raising the bar
• Provide art direction for photo and video production as needed, guiding external and internal partners through shoot and post-production
• Act as a trusted creative and brand expert and Creative Director proxy when needed—leading reviews, presentations, and partner discussions

Who You Are

• A proactive, solution-oriented leader who takes full ownership and follows through
• Highly articulate communicator who can clearly explain creative strategy and sell ideas at all levels
• Incredibly organized, calm under pressure, and effective in a (very) fast-paced environment
• A strong creative storyteller with excellent judgment and attention to detail
• AI-obsessed and efficiency-minded, always experimenting with new tools, workflows, and ways of working
• Collaborative, confident, and trusted by partners and peers
• Comfortable giving clear, actionable feedback and pushing the team to evolve
• Possess a high level of expectations for yourself and for your team
• Passionate about digital craft, retail, the customer, innovation, and continuous improvement
• A pet lover who…