Associate Communications Officer, Media

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: that people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. By building a global and cultural workplace that supports greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — together with our employees and partners, we can help all people improve their lives from poverty and health to education. As an organization we offer full healthcare premiums coverage, generous paid time off, contribution to your retirement fund, several employee communities, and a commitment to embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into everything we do.

The Team

In June 2020, the foundation hired a Chief Communications Officer and established a new Communications Division to oversee the foundation’s global communications strategy. The division brings together internal and external communications to advance the foundation’s mission of a more equitable world.

The Global Communications division is responsible for shaping internal and external use of foundation voice in order to protect the foundation’s reputation and advance its priority advocacy and program objectives and ensure that employees are meaningfully connected to the foundation’s mission and community. The team is responsible for comprehensive voice planning for foundation leadership and key spokespeople as well as driving engagement with media.

The Media and External Communications team works in close collaboration with teams across the foundation as well as partners to manage foundation reputation through proactive and reactive engagement with media, partners, and foundation partners. We do this by securing on-message, positive media coverage of foundation issues and advocacy priorities and building and maintaining relationships with and serving as a go-to-resource for global journalists and media outlets that reach diverse target audiences. The team also is responsible for managing reputational risk in the media as well as the foundation’s responsiveness to incoming inquiries from media, grantees and the general public.

Your Role

The person in this role will serve as a critical and collaborative facilitator and coordinator for an effective, fun, respectful and responsive team that works across many divisions in the foundation – most regularly with colleagues in the central communications division but also with our colleagues on the policy and advocacy and regional communications teams as well as the Executive Office and the co-chairs’ personnel offices. You will support the team’s proactive and reactive engagements with media by: tracking and reporting on media activities across the foundation; collaborating with colleagues across the foundation, as needed, to promptly respond to incoming media inquiries; maintaining and enabling access to media assets; maintaining the team’s media management relationship tool; drafting and developing internal briefs and coordinating logistics for foundation leadership (including co-chairs and division presidents) media interviews and media activities; and, drafting and developing external-facing documents such as fact sheets and 1-pagers.

What You’ll Do

• Oversee and organize team knowledge management systems for sharing relevant internal and external information, such as tracking media engagements, activity and impact and media trends as well as facilitating information flow of internal materials for use across the organization by communications staff.
• Serve as a thought partner to the deputy director, media and external relations, to track and bring fresh ideas to improve team processes/protocols and handle information flow across regional teams, program, advocacy and communications team, and the co-chair private offices.
• Manage and be responsible for the suite of media-specific tools and processes to ensure the media and external relations team works efficiently and effectively (e.g., MuckRack, Isebox, etc.).
• Route, work with partners and respond to incoming media requests and support or lead proactive outreach, as needed, for project or programmatic activities and announcements.
• Support oversight of project management staff working to deliver approved media materials and briefs for leadership, providing oversight of workbook schedules and negotiating deadlines and securing approvals, as needed.
• Write and edit content.
• Manage logistics for media interviews and coordinate with producers, journalists, film and audio crews, AV/IT, and pre-empt or resolve technical needs.
• Manage the multimedia assets site for journalists, sourcing and organizing content, and obtaining approvals.
• Coordinate the communication’s rapid response team – setting agendas/facilitating meetings, tracking action items and reporting out to team members.

Your Experience (i.e. Qualifications and Education)

The Associate Communications Officer should have a passion for the foundation’s mission and a strong interest and understanding of the global media landscape, regularly tracking global news cycles, journalists, and industry trends. You will be proactive and a problem-solver, able to work under pressure with poise and operate with alacrity in a fast-paced and respectful environment, ideally with experience navigating large, matrixed, global organizations. You will be super organized, have confidence in your abilities and an affinity for improving team effectiveness as well as managing the many moving parts of a sophisticated process to bring projects to successful completion. You also will bring respect and curiosity to working with colleagues from around the world with a client service approach. You are creative, resourceful, and have excellent judgment and you enjoy collaborating...a lot. Additional qualifications include:

• Strong written and oral skills and an understanding of communications strategies and tactics
• Ability to build trusting and effective relationships with colleagues, leadership principals, and external partners
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
• A keenness for working under pressure and meeting tight deadlines
• Eagerness to learn and grow in one’s career as a media relations professional
• Sense of humor and ease working with different types of people and working styles
• Dedication to a job well performed and to supporting your team’s success
• Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.

Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Depending upon your work location, we may require proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 and any recommended booster doses. All employees based in the United States are to provide proof of full vaccination upon hire and any recommended boosters, subject to applicable laws.

Accommodations

If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request to hr@gatesfoundation.org.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We’re committed to creating a workplace where employees thrive both personally and professionally. We also believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve—in race, gender, age, cultures and beliefs—and we support this diversity through all of our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.