22 Aug
VP Corporate Communications (remote, part-time)
West Virginia, Charleston 00000 Charleston USA

Vacancy expired!

Do you want to improve the world? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to get in at the ground level working at a world-changing organization just as they started growing rapidly? Excited by the opportunity to power world-class entrepreneurs and Changemakers as they work to positively impact the lives of 100,000’s & 1,000,000’s for decades to come?

At Ignite Mental Health we're accelerating world-class mental health entrepreneurs and mobilizing students at scale to catalyze the scalable innovations and legislative changes needed to transform the future of student mental health literacy and access. Using this approach, we're working to make the impossible inevitable; helping build and scale lasting legislative changes and breakthrough organizations to be as impactful as Google and Facebook that focus solely on equipping every student with a standard measure of mental health literacy and access.

Become a member of a mission-driven founding team that grew rapidly from the Harvard and MIT communities, with the support of the Harvard Innovation Labs Venture Incubation Program, to become a nationwide effort in just nine months! You will perch atop a fast-growing organization working to catalyze national and global change with the opportunity to learn, grow, and hopefully thrive in our fast-paced, entrepreneurial, and impact-driven environment.

As a VP of Corporate Communications & Spokesperson you will have the exciting opportunity to evangelize Ignite’s brand as well as develop, lead and execute strategies that promote, enhance, and project the organizations vision, brand and reputation to all internal and external stakeholders. We are looking for a creative, strategic and integrative leader who is willing to take calculated risks, be bold and explore new ways to keep our team and stakeholders updated and engaged as we move into the next phase of growth to transform the future of mental health.

You will coordinate directly with our CEO and executive team with areas of focus including internal communications, stakeholder communications, executive and advisor communications, and elements of public relations. We are looking for a communications leader who is a category creator and natural storyteller and has a successful track record of building and leading communications programs.

We’re expanding our world-class team. This is where you come in.

Key qualities

  • Your audience is your obsession. Working across corporate communications, you get to know your audiences well be it executive, team member, media, or advisor. You have the ability to productively converse, cater to, and evolve your approach depending on who you’re creating for.
  • You’re highly organized and able to manage multiple projects at once. You thrive in a fast-paced unstructured environment. You balance priorities while maintaining strong focus on execution and results, responding quickly to time-sensitive communications while maintaining a positive attitude. You’re incredibly organized and adept at creating workback schedules to execute on communications. Though you always have a plan, you remain nimble, ready to jump on opportunities when they arise. You synthesize and self-start. You have the ability to quickly grasp information across a variety of disciplines and subsequently develop clear communications with minimal guidance.

  • You collaborate and own outcomes. You’re a great listener, open to feedback and have a high attention to detail. You’re low ego and able to adapt to new information or constructive guidance. You involve collaborators throughout the communications process and maximize opportunities to deliver amazing work that generates results with your target audience.

What you'll get to do

  • Develop and lead our overall communications strategy (internal and external), inclusive of internal communications, crisis communications, community functions. This will include interim management of public and media relations.

  • Maintain a deep understanding of brand, audience, active projects and company objectives on an ongoing basis to ensure all communications make clear how the work ties back to our broader mission, goals, and values.

  • Gain and maintain deep understanding of our projects, activities and objectives and distill these into easy-to-understand and connected communications on a wide variety of topics that support the company strategy.

  • Activate internal and external communications strategies, working extensively with stakeholders and team members to translate information into clear and engaging communications that achieve company goals. This will include collaborating in-house to prepare and hosting weekly/monthly stakeholder video updates, newsletter style updates and email and crisis communications coordination.

  • Ensure all communications are impactful and aligned with our desired tone.

  • Lead crisis & issues management and media response strategy and messaging for Ignite issues, refine protocols to ensure readiness. Ensure organizational reputational management.

  • Use brand standards to write memorable, compelling, and engaging content in an audience appropriate tone including Advisor and team communications, press releases, content for our career sites etc.

  • Utilize our team channels (e.g., All Hands meetings, Slack, engagement surveys, Office Hours) to ensure we are listening and learning from our team and grounding our communications in data.

  • Source editorial content, conduct interviews, capture content and solicit testimonials with internal and external audiences.

  • Track results and apply key learnings to improve future communications, content, and engagement. You should be comfortable trying new things in order to see what resonates best with our various audiences.

  • Own the mission of our organization and wear whatever "hat" is necessary to achieve communications focused OKR's.

  • Ignite is a fast-growing startup and we are seeking candidates who thrive in a role where duties and areas of responsibility will evolve and change with organizational growth.

Must haves

  • A minimum of 10 years relevant progressive communications experience, preferably in a corporate, in-house agency or campaign/political setting or fast-growing tech startup environment.

  • Deeply passionate about transforming mental health.

  • Excellent verbal and written communications, writing, layout/design skills, presentation skills; must be able to communicate and pitch concepts effectively and compellingly. Spokesperson experience desired but not required.

  • Demonstrated results in problem solving, strategic, creative thinker comfortable with generating ideas and plans, and getting those plans across the finish line.

  • Substantial project management and time management skills, with the ability to prioritize, meet deadlines and change direction quickly according to fast-evolving business needs.

  • Passionate, positive, self-starter who enjoys working in a cross-functional team environment.

  • An understanding of the startup-to-public company journey and culture and the challenges of evolving a narrative to keep pace with that change is preferable. Ignite Accelerator is not a technology company however our communications requirements will match those required for companies in this space.

Time

  • Successful fulfilment of these duties may involve volunteering 10 – 15 hours per week. We appreciate that some candidates may not have availability during the traditional hours of 9am – 5pm EST. Our VP of Corporate Communications will likely be serving a national team of 5 – 25 people with the potential of 100 part-time Senior and Junior Advisors and part-time contributors.

Location

  • Our VP of Corporate Communications would be welcome to work remotely or in-person with our Founder and key team members in the Boston area. In-person options may be dependent on a range of COVID-19 health and safety related factors.

Ignite Mental Health is not a department of Harvard University, nor are we in anyway owned or operated by the University. Ignite is a nonprofit startup founded by Harvard students which is incubated by and works (pre-covid) out of the Harvard Innovation Labs VIP program on the Harvard Business School Campus.

NB: This position is at a non-profit startup and is non-compensated. For candidates who might be enrolled in a University, we gladly invest best efforts in assisting you in any way we can to secure educational internships (for credit), financial stipends, financial fellowships or financial scholarships to cover your living and other costs while with us.

This description is intended to describe the general nature and level of work which may be performed by persons assigned to this position. It is not intended to include all duties, responsibilities or other potentially relevant information which may change between the date of this posting and potential interviews.

Our ambition is to scale innovative solutions and legislative actions —unafraid of transforming traditional approaches—that tackle the root causes of some of the biggest problems affecting mental health literacy and access.

Are you in?

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