Vice President, External Communications

UKG•Lowell, MA

2d•$210,000 - $298,000

About The Position

UKG is seeking a Vice President of External Communications to lead the company’s global external reputation and influence strategy and strengthen UKG’s leadership in Workforce Operations. Reporting to the Chief Communications Officer, this leader will turn UKG’s enterprise narrative into market belief—shaping the conversations, stories, and proof that build reputation, trust, and category authority with C-suite leaders, customers, media, analysts, influencers, and the broader market. The VP will lead an integrated organization spanning Product & Technology PR, Industry & Customer PR, International PR, Social, AI Discovery, Thought Leadership & Newsroom, and Analyst Relations. This is both a market-facing leadership role and a transformation mandate: building a modern, externally wired communications engine that creates the reputation foundation for Marketing to build relevance and demand, and for Product and Sales to prove customer value.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive experience in external communications, public relations, corporate communications, reputation, or related disciplines, including significant senior leadership experience.
Demonstrated success leading a complex, global external communications organization across multiple communications disciplines.
Proven track record building or transforming a modern communications function, including organizational design, talent assessment, capability building, and leadership development.
Deep expertise in reputation strategy, narrative development, media relations, executive counsel, issues management, and external storytelling.
Strong business judgment and demonstrated ability to connect reputation and communications strategy to growth, market positioning, customer priorities, and business outcomes.
Exceptional executive presence with the ability to advise CEOs and senior executives, influence enterprise decisions, and operate effectively in high-stakes environments.
Established credibility and relationships with top-tier business, technology, and/or industry media and other influential external stakeholders.
Demonstrated ability to build high-performing teams, develop leaders, and drive alignment across complex, highly matrixed organizations.
15+ years of progressive experience in external communications, public relations, corporate communications, reputation, or related disciplines, including significant senior leadership experience.

Nice To Haves

Significant leadership experience in enterprise B2B SaaS, technology, or another complex technology-driven business.
Experience overseeing product and technology PR, analyst relations, thought leadership, social, international communications, and emerging digital or AI-discovery capabilities.
Experience establishing category leadership or repositioning a large enterprise technology company in the market.
Strong understanding of how AI, search, social, and changing information-discovery behaviors are reshaping reputation and influence.

Responsibilities

Set and lead UKG’s global external communications strategy to strengthen UKG’s reputation, differentiation, and leadership in Workforce Operations.
Translate UKG’s enterprise narrative into sustained external conversations that build belief in who UKG is, why we matter, and how we are different.
Shape market perception around the forces transforming work and business, including workforce operations, frontline work, AI, productivity, and the flow of work.
Move UKG from episodic visibility to sustained authority in the conversations we want to lead, using executives, research, customer outcomes, product innovation, and proprietary insight to reinforce a consistent story over time.
Lead an integrated global organization across PR, Social, AI Discovery, Thought Leadership & Newsroom, Analyst Relations, and international communications—bringing specialized disciplines together around one narrative and shared reputation outcomes.
Build an audience-led, proactive operating model that starts with the conversations shaping the market rather than the moments UKG has to announce.
Create the external foundation for the broader customer journey: Communications builds belief and reputation; Marketing creates buyer relevance; Product and Sales provide proof and value.
Oversee the external dimension of reputation risk and crisis response, including media strategy, external stakeholder communications, social response, and reputation monitoring in close partnership with Corporate Communications.
Serve as a trusted senior counselor to the CEO, CCO, and executive team on reputation, media strategy, competitive narratives, industry positioning, and emerging external issues.
Bring an outside-in perspective to executive decision-making—identifying where UKG has whitespace, where perceptions need to shift, and where the company should lead.
Maintain strong relationships with influential business and technology media, analysts, industry voices, and other external stakeholders while empowering leaders across the team to own relationships and outcomes.
Build executive and customer voices into UKG’s reputation strategy, creating opportunities for credible leaders to shape the conversations UKG wants to lead.
Build a customer-powered reputation engine that uses credible customer voices and measurable outcomes to demonstrate UKG’s impact on workforce and business performance.
Partner closely with Marketing, Product, Sales, Customer Experience, and other teams so one UKG narrative travels through the customer journey without turning reputation, demand, and sales into the same work.
Strengthen UKG’s visibility and authority across media, analysts, social, search, AI-powered answer engines, and emerging channels.
Establish a modern measurement framework focused on outcomes—including reputation, category association, share of voice, message penetration, analyst perception, executive influence, AI/search discoverability, customer advocacy, and contribution to strategic business priorities.
Transform and scale a modern External Communications function by assessing talent, upgrading capabilities, clarifying roles, and establishing new ways of working.
Build and develop an exceptional leadership team, create strong succession pipelines, and empower leaders to make decisions and own outcomes.
Break down silos across disciplines and functions, aligning the organization around a common narrative, shared priorities, and clear accountability.
Set a high performance bar and foster a culture that is externally curious, collaborative, fast-moving, data-informed, adaptable, and willing to challenge established ways of working.