Why Smart Companies Are Hiring Creative Leaders Early: Brand Strategy as a Business Advantage

For a long time, creativity sat at the edges of the business: brought in late, used for polish, too often treated as something separate from “strategy.” That era is ending. Today’s most ambitious companies are pulling creative leadership into the centre; because they’ve realised brand isn’t just a communications layer. It’s a business layer. And creative leaders, especially those with a strategic tilt, are uniquely positioned to help companies think clearly, act decisively and show up meaningfully.

At Maestro, we’re seeing more founders and executives turn to creative leaders early: to sharpen the pitch, define the product, shape the narrative. Not as an add-on to marketing, but as a co-pilot to the core business. Here’s why.

Creativity drives clarity

The strongest creative leaders aren’t just making things look better. They’re helping businesses make better decisions. They bring structure to ambiguity. They translate complex ideas into clear narratives. They help companies answer hard questions: Who are we? What do we stand for? Why should anyone care?

And that’s not just “brand”- that’s business. When creativity is used upstream, it doesn’t just inform how a business is marketed. It shapes how a business is built. Positioning becomes product strategy. Language becomes hiring alignment. Identity becomes direction.

Brand is bigger than marketing

In companies where brand is still treated as a marketing output, creative leaders are often under-leveraged. But when brand is seen as the connective tissue across product, culture and customer experience, creativity becomes essential to growth. Great creative leadership doesn’t just create campaigns. It influences what gets built, how it gets experienced, and who wants to be part of it; internally and externally. Think of brand as a tool to align decision-making, not just storytelling. That’s when creative leadership starts to look less like a cost centre and more like a growth driver.

Good creative leaders don’t just inspire. They operate.

There’s a misconception that creative leadership is about blue-sky thinking, tone of voice and splashy visuals. And yes, those things matter. But the best creative leaders also bring operational fluency. They know how to build teams, manage agencies, scale systems. They understand how work gets done in growing businesses; and how to move quickly without losing quality or meaning. Especially in a fractional or embedded role, this balance of vision and execution can be transformative. They give shape to a new vertical. They build the infrastructure for scale. They leave behind not just assets, but a mindset.

The Big Takeaway - It’s Time to get Creative

Creative leadership isn’t a “nice to have” once you’ve figured everything else out. It’s a competitive advantage in figuring things out faster and smarter. If you’re building something new, if you're repositioning, or if you're scaling a team and need coherence; bring in a creative lead early. Not just to express your brand, but to help define it. Because when brand is treated as business strategy, and creativity as a leadership skill, you don’t just look different. You think differently. And that changes everything.