Posted on February 2, 2013

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Director of Communications

About the Skoll Foundation:

Created in 1999 by eBay’s founding President, Jeff Skoll, the Skoll Foundation pursues his vision of sustainable world peace and prosperity. The mission of the Foundation is to drive large-scale change by investing in, connecting, and celebrating social entrepreneurs and the innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems. These change agents and their organizations are creating innovative models that can spark large-scale change for seemingly intractable human and environmental problems. The Foundation’s current portfolio of 97 social entrepreneurs and 80 organizations on five continents includes some of the most successful social entrepreneurs in the world. Over the past 12 years the Foundation has awarded more than $342 million.

Position Summary:

Reporting to the Chief Strategy Officer, the Director of Communications will work closely with the CEO and Executive Team to raise the profile of the Foundation and its funded partner efforts to drive large-scale social change. With the evolution of the Skoll Foundation’s mission to impact the world’s most pressing problems, an orchestrated communications program is critical to drive increased awareness, collaboration, and resources to the entrepreneurial innovations they support. The Director of Communications role provides a unique opportunity to be a change agent and build a comprehensive communications program.

This role is brand evangelist and steward, ensuring consistent, on-point messaging internally and externally. It requires strong communications and public relations expertise and athleticism to pivot from highly strategic to execution of tasks. A talent and willingness to create compelling content across traditional and digital channels, including websites and social media, with an ability to identify, target and measure audience engagement. This leadership role is key to our evidenced-based work and brand-building efforts. A significant individual contributor, the Director of Communications is also a collaborative advisor and partner, providing management guidance of other team members and external consultants.

Primary Responsibilities:

1. Strategic leadership and guidance on all communications issues

• Conceive a broad-spectrum, integrated communication plan to increase the Skoll Foundation’s profile among target audiences and advance its mission across all platforms.
• Develop internal communication framework to drive alignment and brand consistency among the staff and board.
• Facilitate the foundation’s crisis communications process and ensure that the plan is current.

2. Implementation and Execution

• Compelling content creation; research, draft, and write editorials, blogs, and opinion pieces on behalf of the foundation.
• Manage a team to produce all outbound marketing communications, including the design and implementation of print and online collateral such as the foundation’s annual report, newsletter, and our websites, ensuring brand is reflected correctly.

3. Build Global Thought Leadership and Brand Advocacy

• Support and position the CEO as a global thought leader in communication efforts and cross-sector speaking opportunities (corporate, government, and philanthropy).
• Develop, train and support an internal speaker and blogger corps to advance the Foundation’s thought leadership among key audiences around the world.
• Work with the Directors to leverage the social entrepreneur portfolio and their innovations, the Skoll Forum, and other Skoll brand opportunities with media, influentials, corporate, funder, and other relevant foundation partners and audiences.

4. Measurement and Metrics

• Work closely with the CSO and Executive Team to develop brand benchmarks and ongoing metrics to ensure the Skoll Foundation’s reputation and integrated work is accurately positioned, measured, and communicated.
• Contribute to market intelligence data collection and analysis by tracking audience engagement and media coverage in specific issue areas as identified by the Program & Impact, Finance & Operations and Skoll World Forum teams.

Qualifications and Attributes

• A strategic outlook to designing and implementing daily communications operations
• Mature, dedicated communications generalist with a demonstrated interest in the Skoll Foundation and its global mission
• Strong integrity, humility and discretion to match our culture
• Intellectual curiosity and the capacity to understand the multiple, interconnected facets of the Foundation’s work
• The talent and versatility to translate strategic imperatives into logistical realities
• Heightened interpersonal skills and an effective team player with individuals from a variety of backgrounds
• Sound judgment and relentless attention to detail

Education and Experience

• A minimum of 15 years of demonstrated success developing, executing and measuring, integrated communications plans
• Experience with a variety of media platforms, including social media is required
• The desire and proven ability to work in an intense, results-oriented environment is essential
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills are imperative.
• A bachelor’s degree is required
• Must be available for limited international travel

Application Instructions

For a detailed position description, please visit: http://www.waldronhr.com/images/stories/Position_Specifications/skoll_dir_comm.pdf

The Skoll Foundation is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Please use FC304 in the email subject line and send your resume and a cover letter expressing your passion for the mission and your fit for the role to Melissa Merritt at search@waldronhr.com .