My Contribution

Associate Creative Director

Creative Direction and Team Leadership
Employer-Brand Platform Development
Hands-On Visual System Design

Creative Team

Independently led day-to-day creative direction across art, copy, and motion. Partnered with the SVP Creative Director and account team on the employer-brand platform.

Partnership

One year

The Challenge

UnitedHealth Group and Optum needed one employer platform that could support fast-moving hiring needs across both organizations. It had to work within each brand’s established standards and remain flexible across a wide range of communication needs.

From Quick-Turn Work to a Lasting System

The account began with a high volume of motion and digital recruitment work on tight timelines. I led the day-to-day creative team from brief through delivery, keeping creative and account partners aligned through complex healthcare reviews.

Feedback from different reviewers could pull the work in competing directions. I recommended a shared employer-brand platform to give future work a consistent creative reference.

One Idea, Two Brand Experiences

I partnered with the SVP Creative Director and account team to explore concepts with the client, drawing on its new communication pillars and real employee stories. We centered the direction on employee voices and warm, human photography. Defined by You gave the work a flexible structure. The first word could change with the story, including Purpose, Growth, Innovation, or Autonomy, while the platform remained recognizable.

I designed the complete visual system for both brands. UnitedHealth Group used bold blue fields and rounded container shapes, while Optum drew from its recently refreshed identity through a warmer system of color and form.

The employee voice and central idea stayed consistent, but each expression still felt true to its brand. That structure allowed the same employee story to work across both organizations while supporting the pace and range of work the account required.

Giving Future Teams a Clear Framework

Each company had extensive consumer guidelines, but neither showed how employer communications should look and behave. I designed one comprehensive employer-brand guide covering both UnitedHealth Group and Optum.

The guide documented how the system should work across the two brands and provided useful examples without turning every application into a rigid template.

The talent acquisition team, UnitedHealth Group’s internal employer-brand creative team, the UnitedHealth Group brand team, and the Optum brand team all reviewed and approved the final system. It respected both enterprise brands while giving talent acquisition a recognizable framework of its own.

My involvement ended before market launch, so the work shown here covers the platform we developed together through final approval.