Associate Vice President - Communications Studio

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation•Princeton, NJ

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is seeking an Associate Vice President, Communications Studio, to lead the team responsible for bringing RWJF’s communications strategy to life. This role reports to the chief communications officer and vice president, Communications Programs. The Communications Studio integrates digital, creative, media relations, messaging, and content as one multidisciplinary team. The associate vice president will set the Studio’s creative direction, translate strategic priorities into integrated, high-impact communications, strengthen RWJF’s brand, and align people, resources, and external partners around the Foundation’s highest-priority work. This leader will also integrate the insights of RWJF’s Truth, Repair, and Transformation (TRT) process into communications, partnerships, workflows, and decision-making, ensuring equity is reflected in all aspects of the Studio's work. The role requires experience leading through organizational transformation, creating clarity, building trust, and establishing new ways of working.

Requirements

Commitment to racial and health equity and to advancing inclusive, community-centered approaches to communications and leadership, consistent with RWJF’s mission, Guiding Principles, and Truth, Repair, and Transformation (TRT) approach.
Experience leading or operating within an integrated communications function spanning areas such as creative, digital, media relations, messaging and content, and brand.
Served in a communications studio, agency, newsroom, or in-house center of excellence responsible for high-volume, high-visibility execution.
Demonstrated ability to translate enterprise, advocacy, or brand strategy into coordinated communications across internal teams, channels, and external partners.
Strong creative judgment and demonstrated ability to raise the ambition, quality, and distinctiveness of communications and inspire teams and partners to produce high-impact work.
Experience stewarding and evolving a brand across campaigns, content, experiences, and other audience-facing communications.
Demonstrated experience leading, coaching, and developing multidisciplinary teams, setting clear expectations, strengthening capabilities, and fostering an inclusive, high-performing culture.
Experience selecting and managing agencies, vendors, or production partners, with accountability for scope, quality, budgets, and results.
Demonstrated history of supporting crisis response and/or sensitive internal communications in partnership with operations, legal, or senior leadership.
Experience navigating and leading through organizational change, including creating clarity, building trust across teams, maintaining high standards, and helping establish new ways of working.
Experience advancing equity, inclusion, or community-centered approaches within communications, campaigns, or organizational practices.
Minimum of 15 years of relevant experience.
Ability to travel to RWJF’s Princeton, N.J. or Washington, D.C. offices for relevant internal meetings and other in-person events, as requested, and to travel as needed for grantee meetings, conferences, site visits, and community events.

Nice To Haves

Five (5) years of progressive experience leading an integrated communications function spanning areas such as creative, digital, media relations, messaging and content, and brand.
Ten (10) years of progressive experience leading an integrated communications function spanning areas such as creative, digital, media relations, messaging and content, and brand.

Responsibilities

Set the creative vision and quality standards for RWJF communications, raising the ambition, distinctiveness, and impact of campaigns, content, and experiences.
Translate priorities established by the Voice Strategy unit into integrated plans across digital, creative, media relations, messaging, content, and experiential channels.
Lead high-priority consequential campaigns and initiatives from planning through launch, establishing clear scope, sequencing, responsibilities, resources, and decision points.
Align Studio capabilities and capacity around the Foundation’s highest-priority work and establish effective workflows and collaboration across disciplines.
Steward and evolve RWJF’s brand, ensuring consistency while strengthening its bias toward innovation, bold direction, and meaningful impact.
Exercise sound judgment and discernment in crisis, internal, and other sensitive communications, bringing calm, discretion, and timely decision-making while working closely with senior leaders and key partners.
Build and lead a high-performing multidisciplinary team by setting clear expectations, coaching, and developing staff, and strengthening the capabilities needed for integrated communications.
Select and manage agencies, vendors, and other partners and oversee Studio budgets with clear expectations for quality, scope, timing, and cost.
Build trusted relationships across Communications and RWJF, including senior leaders, and provide sound judgment on sensitive, crisis, and internal communications.
Embed equitable and inclusive practices in team leadership, decision-making, partner selection, audience engagement, and communications outcomes.
Perform other duties as assigned.