Sr. Brand Manager

Reports To: Head of Brand

Direct Reports: Associate Brand Designers (2)

This role requires a full-time onsite presence in Durham, NC

Target Base Range: $115 - 135k plus incentives (Final compensation commensurate with experience and qualifications)

Please note: We are only able to consider candidates who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (green card holders) and who do not require current or future visa sponsorship of any sort.

Job Summary

IONNA is building the most reliable, driver-centric, and design-forward charging network in North America - and the Brand team is where that promise takes shape. We're looking for a Sr. Brand Manager to be the creative and brand engine of that team: the person who defines what the IONNA brand is and turns it into bold, consistent, unmistakably on-brand work across every touchpoint. Reporting to the Head of Brand and leading a small team of designers, you'll create and own IONNA's brand standards and guidelines, lead creative direction and the brand system, own the brand's storytelling and voice, the brand strategy and insights that keep the work grounded in why drivers choose IONNA, and the vendor relationships that extend the team's output. This is a hands-on senior role with real ownership and room to grow into the full creative lead as the brand scales.

Key Responsibilities

• Brand Standards & Guidelines: Create, own, and evolve IONNA's brand standards and guidelines - the single source of truth for identity, logo usage, color, typography, voice, imagery, and how the brand is applied across print, digital, and physical touchpoints.
• Creative & Art Direction: Set and hold the creative vision, taste, and aesthetic standard for all brand output; provide art direction to the design team and to external creative partners.
• Brand System & Asset Library: Own and evolve the design system that puts the standards into practice - components, typography, color, and usage - and the organized, versioned brand asset library it lives in. Own the brand zone plus the library's structure and taxonomy; the digital-asset zone is owned by the Sr. Manager, Digital Experiences within one shared library.
• Storytelling & Verbal Identity: Own how the IONNA brand sounds and is positioned including tone of voice, verbal identity, and the storytelling principles that shape our messaging. Define and govern the voice standard across campaigns, channels, and touchpoints (the how we sound), while message content on the comms side is owned by Communications.
• Brand Strategy & Insights: Own brand strategy, positioning, and brand-health insights - understanding why drivers prefer IONNA and feeding that back into the creative work.
• Creative Intake & QA: Own the intake and quality gate for brand requests - prioritize, brief, review, and approve work to the brand standard before it ships.
• Team Leadership: Manage and develop the Associate Brand Designers - allocate work, mentor craft, and grow the team's output and consistency.
• Vendor Management: Own IONNA's brand-related vendor relationships - today spanning creative and production studios, ecommerce / merch, online store, and brand strategy, research, and insights partners and brand health, and growing as the function scales. Brief, direct, and hold each to the brand standard.

Year 1 Success Plan

Year one is a foundational build. Success is measured by delivering the systems that make the brand function run - each defined below with its success metric, approved by the Head of Brand, and reported to executive leadership. Operational and brand-outcome metrics phase in as the systems and tracking below come online.

• Brand Standards & Guidelines - delivered: Complete v1 brand guidelines (identity, logo, color, typography, voice, imagery, applications). Success metric: guidelines published, approved by the Head of Brand, and adopted as the single source of truth.
• Brand System & Asset Library - built: Design system (components, templates, usage) and the organized, versioned brand asset library it lives in. Success metric: system and library live and in use by the team and vendors, with the brand zone and taxonomy established within the shared library, approved by the Head of Brand.
• Brand-Health Tracking & Baseline - established: Stand up brand-health measurement - brand equity, preference, and consideration (distinct from social / marketing sentiment). Success metric: instrument live with an initial quantified baseline captured - preference, consideration, and awareness scores benchmarked against Electrify America and EVgo. (This baseline becomes the ongoing brand-health outcome KPI in year two.)
• Department Operating System - stood up: Establish single-front-door intake, prioritization, and QA for the brand function. Success metric: intake process live and in use across requesters, producing a measurable on-time delivery rate of requests per the agreed-upon SLA.

Mission & KPI's

• Mission: Build brand so that drivers choose IONNA.
• KPI 1: Brand Health (Scale & target)
• KPI 2: On time delivery of milestone & ticket items
• KPI 3: Utilization

Required Qualifications

• A minimum of 6* years in brand design, brand management, or creative leadership, including hands-on design work.
• Demonstrated experience creating brand standards and guidelines (a brand book / brand system) from the ground up - not just working within an existing one.
• Proven creative direction - the ability to set and hold a design system and a brand standard across channels.
• Strong storytelling, copywriting, and brand-voice experience.
• Experience leading and mentoring designers.
• Brand strategy and insights experience - positioning, brand health, and translating insight into creative work.
• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and Figma.
• Experience directing external creative, production, or research vendors to a brand standard.
• Excellent communication and organization, with the ability to manage many projects in a fast-paced, scaling environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience scaling a brand or creative function from an early stage.
• Background spanning experiential / physical and digital brand.
• Experience in automotive, EV, mobility, or hardware-enabled consumer brands.
• Familiarity with brand-health tracking and insights tools.

IONNA is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices through a competitive base salary, as well as offering bonus programs and comprehensive benefits such as medical, dental, vision, life, 401(K), and paid holidays. Actual base salaries are based on several factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, experience, certifications, and specific work location.