Job Opportunity for Senior Director of External Communications at Wikimedia Foundation

Summary

This role will be responsible for marketing and communications at Wikimedia Foundation, developing strategy for the Foundation’s global external communications, and directing execution across all paid, owned and earned media channels, to maximize impact. This includes integrated marketing, digital communications, media relations, executive communications, and integration with the insight and analytics capability that supports all of these disciplines.

To maximize the positive impact of External Communications on the Foundation as a whole, success in this role will necessitate close collaboration with other specialists in the Department. These include Movement Communications, Foundation Communications, Project Management, and Brand Studio (the internal brand guardianship and creative capability), and an effective partnership with other Departments. 

This is a new role that indicates the strategic importance of External Communications in the future success of the Wikimedia Foundation and its brands (in particular Wikipedia) in delivering its organizational goals around free knowledge for all and its equitable growth ambitions. As Director of External Communications, you will oversee an expanding team of 15 people, providing vision, coaching, and mentorship.

You are responsible for:

Integrated Marketing

• Develop and deploy an integrated marketing programs plan across all paid, owned and earned touchpoints
• Work closely with the Head of Insights to drive strategy by providing relevant market insights and definitions of audience needs to all Foundation stakeholders
• Identify opportunities to increase Movement awareness and participation as well as  to continuously improve communications effectiveness using insights and analytics
• Act as the front door for the Foundation as a whole in developing integrated external communications plans that maximize the chances of success of key initiatives from those Departments 

Digital Communications

• Develop a comprehensive vision, editorial, engagement, and growth strategy for Wikimedia/Wikipedia digital channels
• Provide oversight for market-specific digital awareness and engagement campaigns for key growth opportunity markets
• Identify opportunistic, cutting-edge, and experimental digital brand and awareness collaborations
  Media & Public RelationsDetermine international media priorities and provide direction for proactive and reactive interactions with the press to support the Wikimedia mission, values, and strategic priorities
• Support the development of global, targeted regional, and national media campaigns that generate significant coverage of major milestones, launches, and developments
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with key market media outlets, as well as with top-tier sectoral, national, and international journalists

Executive Communications

• Create a marketing/public relations strategy that will allow leadership to cultivate and enhance meaningful relationships with targeted, high-level external audiences, including media and key influencers
• Profile and position Foundation executives at the right level in global opportunities, and ensure appropriate support for executive public speaking
• Collaborate with various teams to create presentations, speeches, talking points, and briefing documents that are aligned with the messaging strategy

Measurement

• Collaboratively identify and develop consistent impact measurement through analytics that can be used to capture learnings and continuously improve our impact and return-on-investment
• Connect with other data-rich teams in the Foundation to achieve a unified understanding and drive effective collaboration

Skills and Experience:

• 12+ years experience as a strategic leader in marketing and communications 
• Experience in managing large teams 
• Track record of creating and implementing successful marketing and communications strategies with collaborative outcomes
• Ability to create and maintain strong relationships, and balance the needs of multiple stakeholders
• Demonstrated experience in delivering and quantifying audience engagement value
• Experience in cross-cultural communications, including communicating across multiple languages. Familiarity with use of English with people whose primary language is not English.
• Experience working with multi-layered communications teams across multiple functional areas

Qualities that are important to us:

• Resilience—we work on new and interesting challenges  in public and collaborative ways
• Experience working with global teams
• Being open, curious, and inquiring in our work
• Self motivation and detail oriented 
• Working together for outcomes, and being willing to change course
• Sharing a culture of constructive criticism and respect
• Natural inclination for team collaboration and for helping colleagues succeed 
• Building a work environment that values and embraces diversity

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

• Experience working with programs that bridge communications, product, marketing, technology, and policy
• A strong international perspective with personal experience in non-native cultures is highly valued
• Experience working with a distributed workforce and sensitivity to diverse cultures, and backgrounds 
• Experience developing programs for developing markets or audiences with limited access to high-speed internet

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge, and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge freely. We host Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content, support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and free knowledge to thrive.