Vice President, External Communications

Vice President, External Communications

The Vice President, External Communications is accountable for media relations, social media, reputation management, crisis communications, and public-facing executive communications for Ascensus and the company's four lines of business. These efforts must accelerate commercial growth, boost familiarity, and amplify our voice and influence across audiences, including financial institutions and intermediaries, national and state governments, and investors.

The Vice President, External Communications will have strong existing media relationships and have demonstrated ability to build effective new relationships with key national, financial and retirement- and technology-focused trade media. He / she will also have a "nose for news" with the ability to lean into current news cycles, as well as create new news based on Ascensus thought leadership views and proprietary data, product innovations and launches, as well as M&A. This leader will also understand the complexities of the current media environment, with strategies to activate social media, including discussion boards, as external communications and reputation management channels. The Vice President, External Communications must demonstrate recent experience building strong executive relationships, establishing, managing and executing CEO and President executive platforms, and writing for those executives.

Job Functions, Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Set vision for media relations, social media and reputation management that amplify our voice and influence with financial institutions and intermediaries, national and state governments, and investors in line with commercial goals and priorities. Document plans, execution milestones and metrics.
• Build effective relationships and partner closely with executive leadership, Corporate Development / M&A, lines of business, Product / Technology and Government Relations to source.
• Develop media-worthy platforms and content including press releases, position papers / thought leadership, executive talking points and prep documents, and related social media resulting in frequent, high-quality earned media opportunities, active social media presence and executive speaking engagements.
• Monitor Ascensus and competitor media positioning and news impact, staying current on industry trends and regulatory issues that impact our business.
• Collaborate effectively across the organization and other centers of excellence.
• Work closely with the Insights & Analytics team to leverage Ascensus data and expertise to pursue media relations objectives.
• Prepare regular reports covering recent media opportunities and press releases for the executive team.
• Protect, secure, and properly handle all confidential data held by Ascensus to ensure against unauthorized access, improper transmission, and / or unapproved disclosure of information that could result in harm to Ascensus or our clients.
• Support our Core Values of People Matter, Quality First and Integrity Always through visible actions on a day-to-day basis and modeling our organizational culture.
• Assist with other tasks and projects as assigned.
• Our Core Values of People Matter, Quality First and Integrity Always should be visible in your actions on a day-to-day basis showing your support of our organizational culture.

Supervision

Experience, Skills, Knowledge Requirements

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer

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