Case Study Creative direction & systems leadership

Included Health

Role & Scope

Senior Creative Leader overseeing brand, marketing, and member-facing creative systems across B2B and B2C touchpoints.

Context

Included Health had recently merged three companies into a single organization. The brand system was minimal, generic, and inconsistent. The creative team was overwhelmed, morale was low, and work arrived via unprioritized intake from across the company. At the same time, Included Health served two audiences: enterprise buyers and millions of end users who relied on clear, trustworthy guidance to access care.

Why This Was Risky

Creative failure was an operational risk. If materials were late or inconsistent, new clients could not onboard employees, members could not understand benefits, and the product itself appeared broken. Demand for customized, co-branded materials was growing exponentially while hiring was frozen.

Key Decisons

1. Kill uniqueness in favor of systems

Prioritized repeatable, high-quality templates over bespoke one-off work.

2. Reframe leadership as enablement

Built systems with the team so quality could scale as the organization grew — without micromanagement.

3. Simplify the brand to speed production

Tightened and clarified the visual system to support both credibility and velocity.

4. Separate fast work from important work

Templated evergreen needs while creating deliberate collaboration models for net-new thinking.

5. Ground trust in realism

Replaced abstract illustration with real photography and clearer language.

Outcomes

Outcomes

  • Estimated 3–5× increase in delivery speed

  • Team engagement scores rose from near-bottom company-wide to near the top

  • Leadership confidence increased across marketing, sales, and product teams

  • Expanded internal creative capabilities across video, web, and brand systems

  • Built a self-sustaining team of emerging creative leaders

What I Learned

Creative systems are business systems. When the creative system is calm, prioritized, and human-centered, it stops being a bottleneck and becomes a force multiplier for growth, trust, and organizational confidence.

Selected Work

Artifacts & Evidence

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