Executive Director for Leadership Engagement and Communications

About the position

The Executive Director for Leadership Engagement and Communications ensures proactive engagement and communication among senior university leaders. The incumbent increases connectivity between university leaders and the community through new engagement tactics and strategies and by producing new communications products and frameworks to catalyze understanding, awareness, and fluency. This position provides timely feedback to the senior leaders, assuring that they are well-informed/prepared, optimally positioned, and in a manner that is responsive to community sentiment and needs. The Executive Director is responsible for ideating, developing, writing, editing, and producing key briefings and comms products that effectively convey vision, priorities, challenges, and major insights to leadership teams and to the broader university community.

Responsibilities

• Create, support, and sustain a model for the optimally positioned executive university leader.
• Develop and implement comprehensive engagement and communications strategies to ensure executive leaders are proactive and synchronized with each other.
• Act as a guide, coach, sounding board, and support resource to executive leaders.
• Ensure the President's Cabinet, the Deans' Council, and assigned executive leaders are synchronized in their messaging.
• Support leaders in their proactive communication with the community.
• Author executive summaries with updated talking points, statements, positions, and related/timely content.
• Maintain official senior leadership information listings, invitation lists, emergency contacts, and distribution lists.
• Ensure senior leaders are fluent on university communications protocols.
• Standardize and improve processes and protocols for leadership announcements.
• Collaborate with leaders and their management teams to communicate priorities, initiatives, and challenges.
• Engage leaders to ensure they are represented in university communications.
• Assist leaders in defining and articulating their stories and narratives.
• Write, edit, and produce compelling content that highlights the achievements, initiatives, and goals of university leaders.
• Promote transparency by ensuring that key information is shared consistently and effectively across the university.
• Provide support and connectivity for leadership bodies as assigned.
• Produce quarterly and annual reports highlighting the accomplishments and challenges of the MarComm team.
• Collaborate with MarComm leadership team and Presidential Communications to produce updates to governance boards.
• Produce strategic publications that require collaboration with and management of internal and external resources.
• Ensure a culture of urgency and frequency in delivering key information to executive leadership.
• Serve as the chief deputy to the Vice President for Communications and Public Relations.
• Produce complex communications plans.
• Elevate, preserve, and defend the university's reputation by developing and executing proactive and comprehensive issues management and crisis communications strategies.
• Manage and implement concurrent short-, medium-, and long-term plans to build robust, responsive, and broad-based communications.
• Cultivate collaborative and productive relationships with key colleagues across the university community.
• Ensure consistent, high-quality, detail-oriented output from team members and units.
• Advance the university's mission-focused and diversity, equity, and inclusivity goals.

Requirements

• Typically, a master's degree, preferably with a specialization in communications, journalism, and/or business management or related fields.
• Minimum of 8 years of related communications and/or public relations experience in positions of increasing responsibility, preferably within higher education.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in a senior leadership role with a hands-on collaborative style.
• Ability to demonstrate a record of leading an organization and producing outcomes that reflect diverse, inclusive, and anti-racist values.
• Experience with building complex communications organizations and organizational content capacity required.
• Expert-level knowledge of communications and content management methodologies.
• Advanced experience with traditional and digital communications functions, channels, and activities.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills and compelling presentation abilities.
• Demonstrated experience managing creative projects and executing across multiple communications and marketing channels.
• Evidence of a positive, energetic, flexible, and creative leadership style.
• Extensive successful writing and editing experience and managing a team of writers/editors in an institutional setting.

Benefits

• Salary range: $143,100.00 - $200,300.00, commensurate with education and experience.
• Commitment to inclusive excellence and the education of the whole person.