Location: Los Angeles or San Francisco
Substack is building a new economic engine for culture, giving the most creative and 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. Substack’s model—based on direct subscriptions—has fueled an explosion of independent publishing. It empowers creators with economic autonomy, creative ownership, and a direct connection to their most engaged audiences.
We’re hiring a Head of Creator Partnerships to lead and scale our work with top-tier creators. You’ll manage a high-performing team focused on recruiting, supporting, and growing the most influential talent on Substack across video, audio, writing, and multimedia. This is a pivotal leadership role for someone who’s passionate about helping creators succeed and shaping the future of independent media.
What You’ll Do
- Lead, inspire, and manage the Creator Partnerships team to recruit and support high-impact creators across formats, ensuring the team meets ambitious growth goals.
- Develop and execute a strategy for onboarding influential creators, helping them build successful subscription businesses and vibrant communities on Substack.
- Own key growth metrics around creator acquisition, retention, revenue, and engagement—aligning impact with Substack’s broader business goals.
- Build and deepen relationships with creators, talent managers, studios, agencies, and tastemakers to expand Substack’s presence in the cultural ecosystem.
- Champion creators internally by synthesizing their needs, motivations, and ambitions into product, support, and partnership opportunities.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Data, Marketing, and Communications to evolve the creator experience and improve outreach and feature adoption.
- Foster a fast-moving, entrepreneurial team culture focused on creative problem-solving, ownership, and high-quality execution.
Represent Substack externally—on stage, in the press, and in key industry rooms—positioning the company as the premier platform for independent creative work. - Stay ahead of creator economy trends, emerging formats, and shifting audience behaviors to keep Substack on the leading edge.
What We’re Looking For
- 8+ years of experience in creator partnerships, talent development, or business development—especially in video, audio, or digital media.
- Proven success leading and scaling teams in fast-paced environments with high agency and ownership.
- Deep empathy for creators and an understanding of the challenges and opportunities they face when building independent careers.
- A robust network across the creator economy—including relationships with top creators, talent agencies, production companies, and digital media leaders.
Strategic thinking and analytical rigor, with a bias for action and a track record of driving measurable growth. - Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills; you know how to inspire trust, close deals, and rally cross-functional teams.
- Insight into digital consumer trends and creator tools; bonus if you’ve built something of your own.
Compensation
Substack offers a competitive compensation package that includes salary, equity, and exceptional benefits. The salary range for this role is $180,000 – $230,000, with final offers based on experience and expertise.
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.
What We Do
Substack lets writers connect with their audience on their own terms and earn money doing it. We make it simple for writers to publish to an email list that they own, get discovered on the web, and charge for subscriptions.
More than 500,000 people pay to subscribe to writers across the Substack network, and the top writers make millions of dollars a year. Substack’s model depends on the success of writers using Substack – we only make money when they do.
“Substack makes it dead simple to start a newsletter and get paid for it.” – Judd Legum, author of Popular Information
"Substack gives me a way to connect with my audience on my own terms.” – Lyz Lenz, author of God Land and Men Yell At Me
Make something that matters
Great writing is valuable. It respects readers' time, their intelligence, and their trust. It helps us make sense of and change the culture we live in. At Substack, we're building a business model that enables great writing to thrive. Learn more about our opportunity and mission.
We are a small but growing team, and there is more to build than we could ever imagine. That’s why we need you.
We aim to take pragmatic approaches to problem solving while shipping high-quality products that allow the writing on Substack to take the spotlight.
Every person at the company participates in customer support. We do this to build empathy with our users and enable us to build better products.
We believe that a diverse team will help us build a product that best serves the needs of a wildly diverse ecosystem of writers. So whatever your background or perspective, we’d welcome your input to help build the best possible version of Substack.
