Vice President, External Communications
WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY - Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, 84193![WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY](/api/image?src=https%3A%2F%2Fgeneral-board-default.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdesk-360x180.webp&w=640&q=75&f=webp)
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Vice President, External Communications
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah
If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families. Current WGU employees should submit an internal application before 8/14/2024 to be considered.The Vice President of External Communications is WGU's senior-most communications executive and has responsibility for developing and executing strategies to protect and advance the university's reputation with a range of external audiences (e.g., policymakers, donors/philanthropists, current/prospective partners, thought leaders, media). This individual oversees a core team that drives WGU's public relations, content and thought leadership, owned social media, and conferences and events. In this role, the Vice President coordinates closely with c-suite executives, Offices of the President and the Provost, executive deans of WGU's academic schools, and senior leaders within MarCom and a range of teams and sub-entities across the WGU ecosystem; an ability to collaboratively develop strategy, lead through influence, and win support for major communications initiatives is critical.WGU employs a full range of B2C and B2B marketing and communications tactics. As such, the Vice President is responsible for coordinating communications strategies as part of fully integrated campaigns across television, OOH, print, conferences/events, digital video, display, social media, email, website, etc.Essential Functions and Responsibilities:Inspire and develop a team of communications professionals, including Director-level direct reports and people leaders across the Earned Media and PR, Content, Social Media, and Conferences and Events functions.Coordinate planning for a $10M+ annual budget in collaboration with senior leadership to execute critical Communications initiatives and achieve University growth and cost efficiency targets, including specific audience, geographic market, and academic program goals.Oversee development of multi-year university and department strategic communications plans that contribute to core university objectives, particularly related to expanding access to education for strategic audiences like low-income, rural, first-generation, and historically underserved learners.Implement a proactive reputation management and press relations program to favorably position the university and leadership within the trade, business, and general press.Build relationships with high-profile external partners in the service of advancing WGU's reputation.Guide the university in developing crisis communications approaches and managing individual incidents in coordination with University leadership.Provide strategic communications counsel to cross-organizational leadership and partner with other communications and marketing leaders to ensure alignment, coordination, and a cohesive narrative.Western Governors University is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation or any other classification protected by federal, state or local law.
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