Director, Audience

The Pew Charitable Trusts • Washington, DC

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Pew Research Center is seeking a visionary, full-time Director of Audience for a three-year term to lead the Center through a period of transformation in how our work reaches and engages the public. This is a new leadership position charged with building out two core areas of growth: our social strategy and our audience data and content strategy capabilities. You’ll help us evolve our trusted, gold-standard research from a model of one-way publishing to one of multidirectional connection — ensuring our research reaches people where they are, in ways that resonate, while maintaining the Center’s hallmark independence and rigor. This is a full-time Center position, but is limited to a 3-year term. Continuation beyond the three-year term will depend on organizational needs and available funding.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in journalism, communications, digital media, public policy or related field.
• At least 15 years professional experience, included a minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible leadership in audience development, social strategy, or digital content operations, ideally within a media organization, research institution, or other high-paced, information-driven environment.
• Proven experience developing and implementing large-scale social or audience strategies.
• Strong fluency in digital analytics (Looker Studio, GA4 or similar), content performance metrics, and audience development tools.
• Demonstrated ability to manage teams, budgets, and cross-functional initiatives.
• Deep curiosity about the ways people seek, share, and understand information.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with multimedia or video storytelling preferred.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead new teams. Partner with leadership to hire, structure, and mentor staff across audience development, data strategy, social media, and emerging formats such as video.
• Shape social strategy. Develop and execute a multi-platform social roadmap that brings Pew’s research into daily conversation, balances reach with relevance and fosters community among engaged audiences.
• Advance our data and content strategy. Strengthen how we use analytics, first-party data, and audience insights to inform decisions around publishing, distribution, and impact measurement. Assist in creation of KPIs and metrics tracking.
• Champion cross-organizational collaboration. Work laterally with research directors, communications leads, and digital colleagues to surface insights and coordinate outreach.
• Experiment boldly. Identify new platforms, partnerships, and storytelling formats that elevate Pew’s visibility and accessibility to broader and more diverse audiences. Deploy team to staff all channels and engage where needed.
• Measure what matters. Define and implement key performance indicators that go beyond traffic to measure engagement, resonance, and long-term impact.

Benefits

• Affordable, comprehensive health care that includes medical, dental (including adult orthodontia) and vision benefits.
• Generous paid annual leave plan, including a winter break between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1
• Employer-paid disability, life insurance and paid family leave plans
• Up to a 12% employer 401(k) contribution, with vesting at the end of the first year.
• A 37.5-hour workweek.
• Health savings or flexible spending account options with employer funding component.
• Flexibility to telework a portion of each week, with an additional four telework “flex weeks” each year for most staff.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director