Head of Communications

We are looking for a skilled and highly motivated communications professional with significant experience of devising and delivering impactful communications strategies and an impressive track record of effective media work. You need to be able to create ambitious, highly strategic plans from scratch and then enjoy rolling up your sleeves and delivering them. On some days, you'll be running brainstorms, writing strategies, commissioning research and devising other impactful interventions to influence the mainstream media narrative on our issues. On other days, you'll be pitching a press release, turning around a reactive line in an hour when a story breaks, or meeting a senior journalist. You should be someone who loves to think strategically about how to shape the media narrative around complex issues, including identifying influential actors and understanding their agendas. And ideally you will be able to demonstrate experience of working between communications, campaigning, policy, and advocacy disciplines and understanding of how these areas of work need to interact to bring about policy change. You do not need to be an economic policy specialist, but an ability to quickly grasp and fluently communicate technical policy issues is essential. 

We are a small organisation and therefore looking for someone who is independent, has their own networks, and can help take our advocacy work to new heights through their strong experience base and network.

About the role 

Critical functions 

The Head of Communications is a new role for the organisation which will build on PMUK’s track record of successful communications work. The focus of the role will be building upon this success as well as developing and implementing an impactful package of strategic communications activities to advance the goals of the organisation and the tax justice agenda. This work will involve influencing the mainstream and new media narrative on economic inequality, extreme wealth, and progressive taxation through building effective relationships with journalists, proactive branded and unbranded media interventions, rapid response work, and the cultivation and deployment of effective spokespeople.  

The work will be diverse, moving from rapid media interventions to long term visioning on how we deliver greater economic equality.

The team is small and the post-holder will also be required to contribute advice and support to other organisational functions which involve communications work, for example our campaigns, our advocacy work, and support to engaged millionaires. 

We work as part of a broad economic justice movement and the post holder will be expected to work alongside allies effectively and generously. This post-holder’s work will be guided by our existing organisational strategy (in the UK and internationally) but the role-holder will have considerable scope to develop future plans for the organisation. 

Job Description - Key Responsibilities 

Communications strategy & delivery: 

• Lead the development and implementation of Patriotic Millionaires UK communications strategy and work, including contributing to the development and delivery of the traditional and new media plans. 
• Devise and deliver programmes of proactive interventions aimed at shifting the media narrative on extreme wealth and inequality, specifically on progressive taxation. 
• Build and maintain effective relationships with potential expert spokespeople and work to deploy these spokespeople in the media. 
• Contribute to ongoing intelligence-gathering, horizon-scanning, and analysis of extreme wealth, economic inequality, and taxation debates to identify opportunities for media influencing. 
• Lead planning and implementation of a rapid response communication interventions alive which arise in political media
• Develop and deliver social media strategy and content for PMUK channels
• Provide support with media strategy and delivery where necessary across PMUK’s broader campaigning work. 
• Effectively commission and manage contractors where necessary for project delivery.

Stakeholders & relationships: 

• Maintain a strong understanding of key journalists and editors relevant to our programmes and campaigns and build and maintain effective relationships with them. 
• Build and maintain effective relationships with engaged millionaires, supporting them in delivering high quality interviews and print media work.
• Build and maintain effective relationships with key civil society allies. 
• Represent PMUK externally, including at public and private conferences, workshops and other events with key stakeholders. 

Team & Organisation: 

• Contribute to organisational planning and strategy development. 
• Deputise for the Executive Director as and when required. 

MEL: 

• Lead on delivery of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) activities for organisational communications to track impact and enable ongoing incorporation of learnings.

Person Specification 

Essential Attributes, Skills, & Experience: 

• Significant experience working in press/communications roles focused on UK politics/media institutions with existing network of contacts among UK political and/or economics journalists.
• Proven and extensive track record of securing coverage in mainstream print and/or broadcast media, including generating stories from scratch.
• Proverb ability to organise and deliver communications and media stunts.
• Excellent understanding of the UK political media environment and strong capabilities in analysing and understanding the motivations and agendas of media actors.
• Experience of developing and delivering successful strategic communications plans based on audience insights and which respect the target audience perspectives. 
• Excellent organisational skills, including the ability to manage a full workload while responding promptly to emerging media opportunities, and to deliver a comms plan with multiple work streams and meet agreed deadlines. 
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, with experience of translating complex topics into engaging content and tailoring messaging and copy to different audiences. 
• Proven ability to effectively develop and maintain relationships with key stakeholders internally and externally, including at senior levels, and to work collaboratively and supportively with colleagues and allies at all levels. 
• Willingness to ‘pitch in’ at all levels of work, to occasionally work evenings and weekends, and to undertake domestic and overseas work trips on occasion. 
• Deep commitment to PMUK mission and values.

Desirable Attributes, Skills & Experience: 

• Good understanding of the UK economic policy landscape and of the media landscape around fiscal policy in the UK. 
• Experience of speech writing and working with high net wealth individuals 
• Experience of working with international allies and international media 

Benefits and Working Hours 

All members of staff currently work an 8 hour day Monday-Thursday, but there is some flexibility around this. 

• Time: Our flexitime policy allows employees to choose, within certain limits, when to begin and end work.
• Salary Progression: Unfortunately, we are unable to provide further salary progression once employees reach the top of their pay band. 
• Pension: Our nominated pension provider is NEST and we match your pension contributions up to 5% of your qualifying earnings.
• Annual Leave: We offer 30 days holiday per year (pro rata), plus bank holidays

How to Apply 

Apply 

To find out more about this role please email.

To apply for this role please send the following information to PMUK Recruitment by an email via the button below which covers the following areas:

A cover letter which includes: 

• why you are interested in this role at Patriotic Millionaires UK (max. 300 words) 
• your experience of building and maintaining relationships with journalists or editors (max. 400 words)
• an impactful communication plan you have developed and delivered, including what factors informed it, what impact it had, and what learnings you took from its implementation (max. 500 words) 

• Your CV 

We are committed to being an inclusive partner and organisation and hope to attract a diverse range of candidates for this role. For further information please read our Equal Opportunities Policy 

Closing date for applications: 9am, Monday 23rd September 2024. First interviews will take place on Monday 7 October to Thursday 17 October in the mornings using Zoom. There may well be a second round of interviews which we will inform you about after the first round. Due to the volume of applications we usually receive, we regret that we are unable to offer feedback to individual applicants.

Values 

At the heart of this work is a shared set of values that guide our behaviour. They inform how we act, the decisions we make, and how we work with each other. These values act as the foundation of all that we do in working towards a more just, sustainable, and inclusive political economy.  

• Fairness. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated fairly and have the same rights and opportunities.
• Solidarity. We support and collaborate across boundaries in working towards a just, sustainable and inclusive economy 
• Courage. We speak out, think, and act boldly for the benefit of a more equal society. 
• Respect. We recognise and welcome different views and treat each other with dignity and respect.
• Democracy. We believe and act within the principles of democracy, and promote these across our work.