Strategic Communications Manager

We’re looking for a communications professional who is passionate about environmental issues & can help to drive forward our mission, raise awareness of our work, & inspire action among public/specialist/business/political audiences to save nature. Our Strategic Communications team are responsible for driving & planning integrated, high-impact communications activity across all our channels & platforms. The team leads our organisational planning on external communications, drives our brand reach & engagement & guides our work in line with audience insight & analysis to ensure we continue to grow support for the RSPB with a clear mission & inspiring brand. You will be intellectually curious, collaborative, resilient & passionate about adapting to new trends & situations. You'll be comfortable working in a fast-moving culture, collaborating as partners with colleagues across the RSPB & in external organisations to drive change in the world. Our Strategic Communications Managers are responsible for managing our major external communications projects. That means recommending strategy, audiences & working alongside product owners to set communications channels, spotting opportunities, coordinating multiple teams made up of people from all over the organisation & keeping track of how we’re doing and where we can do better? This is a role for a confident, organised & dynamic professional who is used to working at a fast pace in a complex environment, is well-versed in problem-solving & can set out clear context, advice & objectives to deliver high-impact public communications for the organisation.

What's the role about?

Plan, advise on & coordinate large-scale integrated communications campaigns

Use insights and research to identify target audiences, and then develop high impact communications plans that resonate and achieve results

Evaluate and report on the success of communications strategies and make recommendations to improve in future

Ensure the organisation understands our strategic communications priorities and is using our planning tools and processes

Be a linchpin of cross-team working, comfortable with working in matrix teams to create effective communications, driving a culture of collaboration and respect?

Be forward-thinking, collaborative and results-driven, and provide swift problem-solving support

Support the Head of Team and Senior Managers in delivering organisational strategy

Manage multiple stakeholders within the business to deliver our communications priorities

Responsible for leading development of creative briefs/comms plans/propositions to inform campaign development, simplifying complexities & solving problems to overcome communications challenge

Essential skills, knowledge and experience:

Excellent personal communication: you’ll be responsible for making sure that the RSPB is communicating in a way that’s accessible, inclusive, inspiring & true to our brand

Positive leadership: you’ll need to be able to inspire large numbers of your colleagues from many different backgrounds & disciplines

Insights-led approach: your work will need to be led by what our key audiences tell us. You’ll need to know how to interpret & use audience research, & evaluate a project

Integrated communications: you’ll have a strong understanding of the full marketing mix from events, digital, social media, media relations, influencers, paid, public affairs and insight-led creative approach

Strategic judgement: which enables you to make good decisions & identify opportunities & tactics to drive impact?

Collaboration: you’ll need to quickly establish & nurture stakeholder relationships, working with large numbers of people at all different job levels in the RSPB, as well as external organisations

Creativity: you’ll need to bring your own creativity to our projects & campaigns, as well as being able to foster creativity in teams you’re working with

Time management: we’re a busy team & you’ll need to be able to manage multiple competing priorities at any one time, working with pace & urgency

Problem-solving & solutions-focused: you’ll often be given challenging briefs that don’t have an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution. You’ll need to be able to come up with inspired ways to meet them & manage multi-stakeholders within the business to deliver our communications priorities

Ability to work on multiple competing high priorities at any one time – flexibility and the ability to multitask is essential

Stakeholder/change/people management experience

Experience working with income & marketing teams

This is a Permanent Full-Time role for 37.5 hours per week. For further information please contact sarajane.brown@rspb.org.uk