Sr. Manager, Business Communications

Zillow

3d•$129,800 - $218,300•Remote

About The Position

The Business Communications team sits within Zillow’s Corporate Affairs organization and connects each line of business to the rest of Corporate Affairs. The team sets the communications strategy for its businesses and works closely with the media relations, owned content and events teams, so that every launch, announcement and moment of change lands as one coordinated effort. As Sr. Manager, Business Communications for Zillow’s agent and broker businesses, you’ll be the single comms point of contact for GMs and product leaders. You’re accountable for the whole picture, rather than handing them off to several channel teams. You’ll own the overall narrative and strategy, set priorities, decide the order when demands compete, and run point as strategic PM across media relations, owned content and events. This is a strategy-and-orchestration role, not a hands-on channel role. You won’t pitch reporters or draft content yourself. You’ll set the direction the channel teams build against and keep the work connected. The agent and broker businesses are technical and high-stakes, and the people you're communicating to are professionals who pay for our products and know this industry as well as you do. The right person has done comms for a business like this before: close to the customer, often touching product, legal, and policy at once, and knows how to guide a large customer base through complicated change while keeping the message clear and credible. This is a senior role that requires both strategic altitude and operational fluency. You'll hold peer relationships with director-level business stakeholders, represent your businesses back into Corporate Affairs leadership, and be the connective tissue between Zillow's agent and broker priorities and the full suite of comms channels and capabilities.

Requirements

10+ years of communications experience, including comms for a technical, customer-facing business where product, legal and policy often intersect.
Developed and owned a communications strategy yourself, rather than only carrying out one someone else built, and can guide channel teams toward effective tactics.
Can create clarity from ambiguity, sequence competing priorities, and hold the thread across a complex, multi-channel effort and guides channel teams to develop effective tactics.
Anticipate issues and stakeholder questions before they arise and come with answers, not just flags; plan for more than one scenario.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Can turn complex product and business topics into clear, compelling narratives, and senior leadership rarely needs to rework what you produce.
Strong instincts for message development, risk identification, and communications sequencing.
Identify executive visibility opportunities tied to agent and broker business priorities, working with broader Communications team to drive and execute.
Get results through teams that don’t report to you by building alignment, removing blockers and influencing director-level stakeholders without direct authority.
Business maturity: share credit, promote inclusive practices, handle conflict and negotiation constructively, and run meetings that end with clear decisions and next steps.
Strong project management discipline (workback plans, clear RACIs, accountability for deadlines) and can manage multiple workstreams across two businesses without dropping anything.
Familiar with AI tools and clear-eyed about where they add speed versus where human judgment and institutional knowledge aren't substitutable and use both well.
Curious about how the business works, including the agent and broker ecosystems, the product roadmap and how comms creates business value. Can tell what’s worth investing in and make the case for resources.

Responsibilities

Set the overall communications strategy and narrative for Zillow’s agent and broker businesses, including the high-level messaging, the priorities and the order of work when demands compete.
Run point as strategic PM across media relations, owned content and events: set the plan, assign lanes and keep the overall effort coherent.
Make sure the business hears from one comms partner and that messages stay aligned across channels and teams.
Stay close to the product roadmap and business context so you can anticipate what’s coming and brief channel teams before they need to ask.
Work across the organization to find and act on new opportunities, showing what a “big idea” looks like and how to bring it to life.
Bring agent and broker priorities to the owned content team, and make sure customer proof points and partner stories are ready when a launch or announcement needs them.
Develop issue-specific messaging for agent- and broker-facing frontline teams on sensitive or complex topics. Run messaging trainings, and help business leaders train their own orgs when needed.
Identify executive visibility opportunities tied to agent and broker priorities, and work with the broader Communications team to carry them out.
Serve as the senior comms contact for agent and broker business leaders: a peer to directors and a trusted resource to VPs and GMs.
Represent your businesses clearly and persuasively to Corporate Affairs leadership, including the VP and SVP.
Build trusted relationships with product, marketing, legal and other partner teams that move this work forward.
Track and report on key metrics across projects, and use results and lessons learned to inform future planning and business decisions.