Chief Creative Officer

Staycity Group
Chief Creative Officer
Reports to: Chief Executive Officer
Location: Dublin/London (with European travel)
Full Time – Permanent

About Staycity Group

Staycity Group is one of Europe’s leading aparthotel operators, offering modern, spacious, and flexible accommodation that blends the comforts of home with the quality and consistency of a hotel experience. Operating under the Staycity Aparthotels and Wilde by Staycity brands, we manage more than 6,000 apartments in vibrant cities such as Dublin, London, Paris, Berlin, and Venice - with continued expansion planned across Europe.

We are a growth-oriented, values-driven business backed by a strong financial foundation and a culture of operational excellence. Our team is passionate about delivering exceptional guest experiences while building one of the most respected hospitality businesses in the market.

This is the moment to hire a Chief Creative Officer who can define and protect what makes Staycity and Wilde extraordinary — and ensure that creative vision scales with the business.

The Role

The Chief Creative Officer is a senior leadership role at the heart of Staycity Group's ambition to compete with the best lifestyle hotel and aparthotel brands in the world. Reporting directly to the CEO, the CCO carries a mandate to own the creative soul of both brands across every guest touchpoint, from the first digital impression through to the lived experience of waking up in a Wilde in Lisbon or a Staycity in Edinburgh.

The CCO will serve as the creative conscience of the business: a collaborator, a challenger, and a keeper of standards. They will work closely with the CEO, Chief Development Officer, Chief Projects Officer, and Operations leaders, as well as external design, architecture, and agency partners to ensure that every new property, campaign, product, and experience tells a coherent and compelling brand story.

This role requires someone who thinks holistically across spaces, stories, and sensory experience - and who understands the commercial context in which great creative work must operate.

The CCO will lead and take direct responsibility for an Interior Design team. In parallel, the CCO will manage a network of external specialists - including architectural practices and specialist interior designers - ensuring that the Group has access to the best creative talent both inside and outside the organisation.

Key Working Relationships

The CCO operates at the intersection of creativity and delivery. Success in this role depends on building trusted, productive relationships across the Group’s senior leadership team and with key external partners.

• Chief Executive Officer: The CCO’s direct line and closest strategic partner. Together they will set the creative ambition for both brands, make key investment decisions, and ensure creative vision is embedded at board level.

• Chief Development Officer: A critical relationship given the pace of new site acquisition. The CCO will engage at the earliest stages of concept development to ensure brand positioning and design intent are established before construction begins.

• Chief Projects Officer: The CCO and CPO will work in close partnership through the full delivery cycle, from design sign-off through to final fit-out and pre-opening walk-through. Creative standards must translate from intent to reality, and this relationship is where that accountability lives.

• Operations Leaders: Brand standards only matter if they are lived daily. The CCO will work closely with General Managers and regional operations leaders to ensure that the guest experience at every property consistently reflects the creative vision — and to understand where the real-world experience diverges from the intention.

• External Partners: Architects, interior designers, creative agencies, photographers, and brand collaborators across European markets.

Key Responsibilities

Interior & Architecture Direction

Provide creative leadership on property design for new builds, refurbishments, and conversions — working alongside the Chief Development Officer, Chief Projects Officer, external architects, and interior designers.

• Set the creative brief and direction for all new Wilde and Staycity properties at concept stage, ensuring design intent is rooted in brand values and neighbourhood context

• Review and sign off on interior design proposals, materials specifications, FF&E selections, and artwork programmes

• Build and manage relationships with a roster of preferred architects and interior designers across European markets

• Ensure design decisions are commercially viable and operationally achievable without compromising creative standards

• Champion locally-rooted design thinking - particularly for Wilde, where neighbourhood identity is central to the brand proposition

Brand & Visual Identity

Staycity and Wilde are two distinct brands that must feel meaningfully different to guests, owners, investors, and the wider market. The Chief Creative Officer is the guardian of that differentiation, defining each brand’s creative direction, setting the standards, and ensuring every evolution is intentional, commercially relevant, and true to its identity. They own, collaborate and maintain the Brand Standards for both brands, encompassing brand, design, guest experience principles, and the creative frameworks that ensure consistency and quality across every touchpoint.

• Articulate and protect the positioning of each brand clearly: Wilde as a neighbourhood-rooted lifestyle brand with genuine cultural credibility; Staycity as a premium aparthotel brand that competes on consistency, warmth, and value for the long-stay guest, both brands distinct, neither one diluting the other

• Lead periodic brand reviews, commissioning research where needed, to keep both brands culturally relevant and commercially sharp, without chasing trends or sacrificing the coherent identity that returning guests recognise and trust

• Manage the briefing and output of external brand agencies, creative studios, photographers, and copywriters, setting clear standards and maintaining quality control across all brand-originated content

• Define and maintain comprehensive brand systems for both Staycity and Wilde, covering visual identity (logo, colour, typography, photography, illustration, iconography) as well as tone of voice, naming conventions, and design language, and ensure these are applied consistently across every touchpoint, from OTA listings and digital channels to in-room collateral, signage, and staff presentation

• Build the internal creative team's capability to be a genuine centre of brand excellence, not simply an execution function

Guest Experience Design

Shape the sensory and emotional experience of every guest, ensuring that the atmosphere, ambiance, and feel of each property is intentional, memorable, and on-brand.

• Define the experience pillars for each brand - from arrival and lobby atmosphere through to in-room sensory elements including lighting, scent, sound, and texture

• Work closely with Operations leaders and F&B leader to ensure the guest journey is coherent and emotionally considered at every stage - and that brand standards are embedded in day-to-day operational delivery

• Develop and document brand experience standards that translate consistently across properties in different cities and markets

• Champion the guest perspective in internal decision-making, acting as a voice for what guests see, feel, and remember

Product & Merchandise

Direct the development of branded products, in-room amenities, and guest-facing collateral, ensuring every physical touchpoint reinforces the brand's values and aesthetic.

• Lead the creative selection and curation of in-room amenity ranges for both brands

• Oversee the design of all branded merchandise, retail items, and gifting - particularly for Wilde where lifestyle retail represents a brand-building opportunity

• Ensure sustainability and quality credentials of products align with the Group's broader values and guest expectations

Innovation & Trend Intelligence

Keep Staycity Group ahead of the cultural, design, and hospitality trends that will define the next generation of aparthotel travel.

• Actively scan culture, design, travel, food, and lifestyle trends globally to inform creative strategy and brand evolution

• Build and nurture relationships with artists, designers, architects, and cultural figures who can bring genuine creative energy to the brands

• Identify opportunities for brand partnerships, collaborations, and cultural moments that extend both brands beyond the hospitality category

• Champion innovation in guest experience and brand expression - from emerging technologies to new spatial concepts

The Person We Are Looking For

Experience & Background

• Significant creative leadership experience, ideally including a senior role (Creative Director, Head of Brand, CCO, or equivalent) within luxury or premium lifestyle hospitality, branded residences, luxury retail, or a closely related lifestyle or cultural sector - with a clear understanding of what it means to build brands that guests feel genuine affinity for

• A demonstrable portfolio of brand-building work - someone who has built or evolved a brand with real emotional resonance and commercial impact

• Experience working across both physical spaces and digital creative - comfort with the full spectrum of a brand's visual life

• Familiarity with European markets and an understanding of what it means to build a brand that works across cities with different cultural identities

• Experience leading multidisciplinary creative teams - ideally spanning interior design and brand strategy - alongside external agency and specialist relationships

Skills & Capabilities

• Exceptional visual taste and a strong point of view - someone who knows what great looks like and has the conviction to hold the line

• Strategic thinking combined with hands-on creative instinct: able to write a brand positioning document and also brief a photographer

• Strong communication and storytelling skills - able to articulate creative vision compellingly to the board, to development partners, to architects, and to guests

• Commercial awareness: understands how creative decisions affect revenue, occupancy, and brand equity

• Collaborative and influence-led leadership style - most of this role's impact will come through working with and through others, not through direct authority

• Curiosity, taste, and genuine engagement with culture: this person reads, travels, eats well, and pays attention

Role at a Glance

• Reports to: Chief Executive Officer

• Two brands: Staycity Aparthotels & Wilde

• Scope: Brand, design, guest experience, product

• 40 properties across 20 European cities

• Pipeline of 4,500+ rooms under development

• London pipeline GDV: £800m+

• Target: 18,000 keys by 2029

• A genuine seat at the table with direct access to the CEO

What Success Looks Like

In the first 12 months, the CCO will have:

• Established a trusted working relationship with the CEO, CDO, and key development partners

• Set the creative brief and direction for our new Wilde property pipeline

• Reviewed and refreshed the brand guidelines for both Staycity and Wilde

• Established clear leadership of the Interior Design team, and put the right external agency and specialist partnerships in place

Over three years, the CCO will have made Wilde one of the most recognisable and creatively admired lifestyle aparthotel brands in Europe - and elevated Staycity into a brand that guests genuinely feel proud to stay with and return to time and time again.

Why Staycity Group

• A rare opportunity to define the creative direction of two distinct, growing brands at a pivotal moment in their development

• Direct access to and support from the CEO - this is a genuine C-suite position with real influence

• A financially strong, privately held business with the ambition and capital to back bold creative decisions

• An entrepreneurial culture that moves fast and values creative quality as a competitive advantage

• An expanding European footprint in some of the continent's most exciting and design-conscious cities

• The chance to build something, a brand that will outlast any individual tenure and that guests across Europe will feel a genuine connection to

If you thrive in a fast-paced, evolving environment where ambiguity is met with enthusiasm and determination, and if you lead with kindness, clarity, and curiosity, we’d love to hear from you.