Senior Director, Communications & Marketing

Senior Director, Communications & Marketing

Team: External Affairs

Location: Hybrid in Atlanta (GA), Chicago (IL) strongly preferred, Newark (NJ), or New York City (NYC)

Employment Type: Full-time

FLSA Classification: Exempt

Start date: ASAP

About Braven

Braven is a national nonprofit that prepares promising college students to secure a strong first opportunity after college graduation through a career-accelerating program.

We work with higher education and employer partners to offer a life-changing experience that begins with a semester-long course for college students, followed by support that lasts through graduation.

Together, our ambition is to help rebuild the middle class and revitalize the American Dream.

About the Role

In order to achieve its ambition of serving 80,000-100,000 Fellows over the next decade, Braven is hiring a Senior Director of Communications & Marketing who will play a pivotal role in leading organizational efforts to be the premier thought leader in the college-to-career space. We're looking for someone who is an extraordinary and groundbreaking storyteller across channels, from press to digital and from video to speeches. This individual will lead a communications and marketing team responsible for shaping and stewarding a brand grounded in excellence.

Individually, you will create the annual communications and marketing strategy, lead major external projectsfrom strategically pushing out new site announcements to impact reports to insights papersand work with partners to elevate the Braven brand. As a member of the External Affairs team, you will lead a 5-7 person team as well as a team of 3-5 contractors responsible for external national and regional communications and marketing (media, speaking engagements, social media, video creation, events, etc), internal and CEO communications, as well as other communication and marketing requests/needs as they arrive in alignment with Braven's brand.

This role is on the External Affairs team and reports directly to the Chief External Affairs Officer.

What You'll Do:

Strategy (30%)

• Set and socialize the goals and vision of Braven's overall communications and marketing strategy (i.e., national, regional, new sites, internal, core customer, secondary customer strategies) in partnership with the Chief Executive Officer, Chief External Affairs Officer, Regional Executive Directors, and select central team leads.
• Support the integration of communication and brand strategies, including digital storytelling, video, press, speaking, and awards, etc strategies across the enterprise.
• Gather, interpret, and synthesize quantitative and qualitative data to define patterns and continuously strengthen our approach to storytelling.
• Create and manage efficient and smart systems, infrastructure and tools to track and report on communications & marketing progress and media stakeholder management.
• Lead org-wide learning and development related to Braven's brand and communications for national and regional staff, including old and new members.
• Oversee the communications stream of change management efforts led by the Associate Director, Internal Communications.

High-Stakes Stakeholder Management and Content Development (50%)

• Bring a network of media relationships and execute media activities that secure high-profile placements across relevant national media outlets and platforms to ensure a drumbeat of high-profile national and local press placements that further understanding of the challenge Braven is working to address and Braven's impact.
• Oversee, play a heavy hand in writing/ideating, and help to place speeches, op-eds, and other statements on behalf of executive and regional leadership
• Oversee and execute on major brand moments for the organization, including the release of impact reports, new site launches, etc
• Project manage CEO's book project

People Management (20%)

• Effectively coach 5-7 full-time communication staff members to become the strongest version of themselves, aligned to the goals of their role and their professional aspirations, as well as meet organizational brand goals.
• This includes effectively overseeing and managing the team that runs point on: events, regional communications strategies and execution, CEO communications strategy and execution, internal communications, Fellow and Volunteer comms, Social, Video, and Google ads, SEO optimization
• Manage a team of 3-5 contractors in the areas of video, web design, graphic design, etc.
• Coordinate with regional teams to understand opportunities and navigate varying regional markets
• Other duties as assigned