Global Media Relations Associate Director

At Edelman Health we are on a mission to help the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and healthcare brands build and safeguard trust with an ever-growing audience of stakeholders, and show how their complex products deliver the thing we all value most - life.

The Health Team at Edelman strategically partner with clients to deliver global, regional and UK integrated campaigns for disease awareness, medical education, patient and employee engagement, digital communications, and much more!

Championing diverse skills, backgrounds and specialisms in our team is the key to our success, and it is this collective of 50 brilliant PR, medical and scientific communications professionals that has helped make us an award winning agency! This year we collected a Gold Cannes Lion in the Healthcare sector for our work, See My Skin , for Vaseline. Learn more about our recent wins here .

Successfully winning new business and growing accounts, our team are now looking for passionate PR professionals to join Edelman Health. So, if you are looking to take your career in Health PR to the next level and work with some of the best in the industry, gaining exposure to some of the biggest accounts in the business, keep reading, this role could be for you...

The Role

Edelman London are looking for an experienced global media relations expert to join the Health department at an Associate Director level. This is a key role in the team that will see you counselling clients, across multiple accounts, on communications marketing strategy and driving every aspect of creating and implementing innovative communications marketing programmes. You will contribute to the development of plans and oversee global media campaigns, and will be responsible for developing and leading client relationships, exhibiting best practice in client management. As a strong leader, you will be working as part of the Health Brands senior leadership team to support the aims of the department/team.

Key Responsibilities

Client management:
Demonstrate deep understanding of media relations at a local and global level, including creating and driving both traditional, social, and digital multi-channel media outreach plans and goals; manage multiple projects for multiple clients from concept to completion.
Develop and execute strategic earned media programmes as an industry practitioner with a global or ex-US market lens.
Identify potential story ideas for clients and turn these into successful pitches to capture the interest of journalists, ultimately resulting in media coverage.
Assess and understand complex situations and quickly distil the information for both the client and media.
Manage media programmes for product launches, corporate purpose initiatives, regulatory milestone events, executive visibility programs, issues-related media events, desk-side briefings, contributed content (op-eds, by-lines, etc.), involving junior team members as appropriate.
Showcase sophisticated understanding of how analytics can/should apply in developing earned media strategies and tactical execution.
Understand Edelman IP and evaluate opportunities to be used to support clients. Be able to determine when to work with the Planning Team or/and Edelman Intelligence to identify research-based insights for specific projects.
Serve as client’s lead earned media contact as needed, address client issues thoughtfully and effectively.
Track brand milestones / announcements while taking into account the client’s broader and longer-term global enterprise goals.
Represent the earned media/earned-centric storytelling point of view within an integrated agency team (e.g., ad/creative agencies, digital agencies) to ensure success across campaigns.
Contribute to business growth through introducing clients to new capabilities, building network of industry contacts and participating in relevant professional organizations.
Team management:
Provide strategic counsel, guidance and leadership to staff, coaching entry and mid-level talent on media pitching skills and ensuring the team's success by managing work quality and productivity levels.
Contribute to business growth through introducing clients to new capabilities, building network of industry contacts and participating in relevant professional organizations.
Contribute to a positive team environment and lead by example, overseeing the work of more junior staff to ensure quality. Remain positive and optimistic with your clients and teams, encouraging a happy and motivated work atmosphere.
Coach staff in a consistent, fair, and sustained manner. Empower staff to succeed without micromanagement, while positioning yourself as the go-to person for junior team members to come to with questions.
Brand and business building:
Keep abreast of industry and competitor news related to clients.
High awareness of current events, emerging issues and, if needed, regulatory processes.
Broad understanding of all facets of media relations and marketing communications, and a strong background in pitching and winning and growing new business.

Key Experience

At least 10 years in earned media work, preferably in the healthcare communications sector working with pharmaceutical industry.
Working with high level media contacts among a variety of reporters, editors, producers, bloggers, etc. across the global media landscape.
Counselling executive clients across multiple workstreams on media interactions.
Managing product launches, milestone announcements, media events, participating in desk-side briefings, etc.

Key Skills

Expert in knowledge of and relationships with legacy and emerging national and globalTV, radio, print, wires, and online media, as well as the interplay of social media/earned media outcomes.
Excellent storytelling skills and provide sound media counsel with all levels of client contacts and stakeholders.
Excellent track record of developing and executing profitable communications campaigns that meet and exceed client benchmarks and KPIs.  Understanding of and relationships with new media: newsletters, podcasts
Proven management and leadership skills as well as a proven track record of executing large-scale campaigns at the strategic and tactical level.
Ability to write strategic media plans and a variety of media materials.