[Hiring] Communications Director @Identity Digital

Role Description

Known is building the accountability infrastructure for autonomous AI. As AI agents increasingly operate across organizations, platforms, and jurisdictions, Known is advancing DNSid as an open, neutral DNS-based identity standard designed to make accountability interoperable at Internet scale.

This is our first dedicated communications role, we're looking for an independent contractor with consideration to become a full-time team member. You will set the narrative and you will also be the person on the phone with a reporter at 7am. If you are looking for a role where you direct an agency and review their work, this is not it.

This role reports to the General Manager of Known.

Scope of Services

• Own the category.
• Make the market understand that autonomous agents create a new accountability gap, and make Known the name people reach for when they think about closing it.
• Live on the front lines.
• Build and run a rapid-response engine so that when something breaks in AI, security, identity, regulation, or agents, we are in the story that day.
• Personally build the reporter relationships. Pitch, brief, background, place.
• Build an influence network, not a media list: the specific reporters, analysts, and independent voices who shape how this market thinks.
• Work Washington.
• Navigate the DC media and policy landscape fluently (Politico, The Hill, trade press, agency and Hill briefings).
• Activate the Councils.
• Put our Advisory Council's names, networks, and expertise to work on reporter conversations, stages, and bylines.
• Build the executive spokesperson bench alongside them.
• Get us into the answer.
• Own GEO and AI discoverability.
• Run launches and moments.
• Lead planning and execution for product launches, commercial and partnership announcements, standards milestones, and industry events.
• Build the machine.
• Manage agency partners, establish the all-hands cadence and leadership messaging discipline.
• Prove it works.
• Draw a straight line from what we publish to customer meetings, partnerships, government attention, standards traction, and developer engagement.
• Actively model and promote Identity Digital’s core values through day-to-day interactions, behaviors, and decision-making.
• Other duties as assigned.

What Success Looks Like

• 90 days: you have a real POV on where the program is working and where it isn't, and you have already placed something we didn't expect.
• 6 months: reporters covering AI agents and enterprise security call us. "Agentic accountability" shows up in coverage we did not write.
• 12 months: we are the reference point for agentic accountability in tech press, in DC, and inside LLM answers.

Qualifications

• 15+ years leading corporate or external communications in technology, with meaningful B2B and enterprise time.
• Category creation experience.
• Front-line media chops.
• Experience building a communications function from zero, at pace, without much cover.
• Fluency with policy and standards audiences and the press that covers them.
• Exceptional writing.
• Range across owned and emerging channels: social, Substack, YouTube, podcasts, developer communities.
• Comfort using AI to extend the function while keeping positioning and judgment human.
• Experience translating technical work with engineers and product managers without flattening it.
• Agency, contractor, and budget management.
• Drive, hustle, and an external orientation.
• Ability to travel as needed.
• Ability to work across time zones as part of a global organization as needed.

Requirements

• Legal: The Contractor must be legally authorized to work in the US and have all permits, licenses, and authorizations necessary to function as a contractor.
• Ethics: Services must be performed in alignment with all applicable anti-discrimination and equal opportunity laws, as well as Identity Digital’s Equal Opportunity and non-discrimination policies and training.

Location

• Remote within the US (preference for the following states: AZ, CA, CO, DE, MD, MA, MO, NJ, NV, NY, NC, OR, OK, PA, SC, TX, UT, VA, and WA).

Compensation

• This role is intended to begin as an independent contractor engagement, compensated through an agreed-upon monthly retainer, with the potential to convert to full-time employment after an initial engagement period.
• The anticipated annual base salary range upon conversion is $165,000–$185,000.

Company Description

Identity Digital is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or any other category prohibited by local, state or federal law.