[Hiring] Senior Communications Officer, Media & Public Affairs @GiveWell

Role Description

We’re hiring a Senior Communications Officer, Media & Public Affairs to lead how GiveWell’s work is represented in the media and in public conversations. You will set our strategy, build trusted relationships with journalists and other influential voices, pursue opportunities that increase understanding of GiveWell’s work, and lead our external response in fast-moving situations.

This role reports to Steven Profaizer, our Vice President of Communications, and will lead a small and growing team. This is one of three new communications leadership roles, alongside a Senior Communications Officer, Strategic Communications and a Senior Communications Officer, Editorial & Production.

In this hands-on leadership position, you’ll own how and where GiveWell engages in media and public conversations, with end-to-end responsibility for this emerging function. You’ll set its strategy, hire and develop its people, build its systems, and personally own its hardest and most consequential work. This is an opportunity to build, not just inherit, an important function at a critical point in GiveWell’s development. You’ll start with a small team and grow it over time.

While this role is set at the Senior Communications Officer level, we may consider hiring an exceptional candidate as a Communications Director—with greater expectations, responsibilities, and compensation.

As Senior Communications Officer, Media & Public Affairs, you will combine long-term strategy and relationship-building with the ability to respond quickly and exercise sound judgment in sensitive or fast-moving situations.

• Set GiveWell’s strategy across media, thought-leader engagement, online communities, public forums and events, and other earned communications opportunities.
• Build and maintain high-trust relationships with journalists, editors, podcast hosts, event organizers, thought leaders, subject-matter experts, and other influential external stakeholders.
• Identify, develop, and pitch substantive stories, event opportunities, and thought-leadership ideas that extend understanding of GiveWell’s work.
• Own inbound media engagement, including situations that require rapid responses, close coordination with subject-matter experts, and careful judgment about what GiveWell can responsibly say.
• Build and maintain GiveWell’s readiness for sensitive or fast-moving situations, monitor emerging issues in media and public conversations, and lead our external response when needed.
• Advise GiveWell’s leadership on external opportunities and relationships, and prepare senior leaders and subject-matter experts for interviews, speaking engagements, and other public appearances.
• Exercise sound judgment about when and how GiveWell should enter public conversations.
• Evaluate and help shape public-facing communications partnerships.
• Serve as a spokesperson for GiveWell in select media interviews, events, and other public forums.
• Work with grantees and other partners on press releases and other media-facing communications.
• Manage and develop one or two team members initially, and build the relationships, systems, and additional capacity the function will need over time.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in media relations, thought leadership, and public engagement.
• Significant experience leading communications in complex, high-stakes environments.
• Exceptional communications judgment.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• A track record of building and leading teams or functions.
• Recent, hands-on excellence at your craft.
• Experience producing communications that are direct and factual while being engaging and effective.
• Intellectual curiosity and the ability to engage deeply with GiveWell’s research and ideas.
• Experience advising executives or other senior decision-makers directly.
• Strong alignment with GiveWell’s mission and values.

Requirements

• Ability to understand complex ideas, build trust, and take action through communications.
• Comfortable being accountable for outcomes and making consequential decisions.
• Ability to engage deeply with GiveWell’s research.
• Demonstrated ability to build meaningful external relationships.
• Experience in settings where precision and credibility are important.

Benefits

• Fully funded health, dental, vision, and life insurance (100% of premiums covered within the US for you and any dependents).
• Four weeks of paid time off per year.
• 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave.
• Ergonomic home workstations or coworking space memberships.
• 403(b) retirement plan.
• Expect to attend three week-long retreats each year to bond with team members.