Director of Communications, VP Academic

The Office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic (VPA) is responsible for the overall direction of the academic mission of the University at its Vancouver campus.

The office provides leadership in strategic planning, financial planning, policy development and implementation, the recruitment and retention of scholarly personnel and infrastructure in order to achieve the University's broader aspirations.

It is a large and diverse portfolio that includes several academic support units, including the Library, UBC IT, Enrolment Services, CTLT, and 12 Faculties.

The Director of Communications, Office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic is responsible for the strategic direction in creating a unified, integrated and centralized hub for all communications, along with brand building across the VPA Portfolio (working with all units). This role leads a cross-functional team that works collaboratively to build and maintain a digital communications ecosystem for the portfolio on the Vancouver campus across web, social, email, blog, and other platforms.

The Director of Communications, VP Academic is also responsible for the promotion of the portfolio and UBC strategic narrative and the portfolio brand. An essential priority for this role is relationship building across the portfolio units identifying potential opportunities, collaborations and organizational alignment within the broader mandate of the portfolio. This position is also responsible for exploring, developing, and expanding the portfolio wide and unit community engagement initiatives, social media presence and development support.

The Director is a key administrator within the VPA team, playing a critical role in developing, managing and leading the strategic development of systems, processes, planning, promotion and implementation, media relations and crisis management. The position promotes and elevates the portfolio’s reputation at the local, provincial, national and international levels while ensuring integration with University wide communications plans and projects aligned with UBC’s strategies in the area of educational leadership, research excellence, local and global engagement, and transformative learning. This position enacts a commitment to anti-racism, equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization through continued service level development, innovations, and improvement to meet the communication needs of UBC’s diverse student population, and to ensure that equity deserving individuals and groups are supported and represented across all communications channels.

Working autonomously, this role reports directly to the Executive Director, Office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic. The Director works closely and builds relationship with UBC’s Communications & Media Relations, Public Affairs, Government Relations, UBCO, University Affairs, VP Research/International and Faculties. Working directly with and providing strategic leadership for unit leads and communications leads across the portfolio.

Organizational Status

This position reports to the Executive Director in the Office of the Provost and interacts with the whole portfolio across areas of responsibility for the VPA, other VP units within the portfolio and Faculties.

Works closely with key stakeholders including External Relations and through this office, Faculty Government Relations, UBC Government Relations, and UBC Public Affairs in development of pro-active strategies and key messaging for issues management.

Work Performed

This role leads the operations of the central portfolio communications team in the provost’s office which conceives, develops and implements communication strategy, initiatives, events, and resources for the entire portfolio (administrative units and Faculties). It will lead a full range of activities and initiatives including:

Strategic Communications Planning and Leadership

• Leads, develops and implements a portfolio communication strategic plan that provides a guiding vision and roadmap for portfolio wide communications, in alignment with the Provost office priorities and UBC strategic plans including those for equity deserving groups.
• Developing strategies to deliver these that engage staff, faculties, students and external partners in our organizational priorities.
• Responsible for conceptualizing and leading an integrated yearly communications planning process for the Portfolio in consultation with the portfolio administrative and Faculty executive leadership.
• Provides leadership and drives the development of the portfolio strategic plan, responsible for conceptualization, design and implementation of the portfolio communications and marketing plans, programs, projects that advance strategic initiatives and marketing activities.
• Develops and executes a robust digital engagement strategy for the portfolio: working in partnership with UBC s centralized IT, Communications & Marketing team and other stakeholders and unit leaders to help elevate and enhance brand reputation of the portfolio, through storytelling, and where appropriate, more consistent branded communications and marketing that align with UBC’s overall brand identity.
• Provides expert communications counsel to executive, senior leadership team and individuals within the leadership and teams across the portfolio.
• Advises portfolio leadership and ensures that responses are sensitively developed in a timely manner to any public relations crisis.
• Develops and manages mission critical strategies for crisis and incident management working with units and portfolio executive leadership.
• Drives communications innovation across the portfolio by spearheading new and/or improved methods of communication with external and internal stakeholders, portfolio units and Faculties to enhance opportunities for information sharing and two-way dialogue.
• Responsible for the management of portfolio wide communications annual budget that supports strategic and annual plans.
• Assesses communications opportunities and analyzes resulting media coverage. Develops and maintains contacts with external relations and other communications leads across the portfolio and wider institution to bring to their attention discoveries, innovations and arising issues.

Team Leadership

• Provides direction and guidance to ensure clarity of goals and priorities for the team and individual team members, including direct and indirect reports.
• Identifies the resources, skills, knowledge, and information necessary for the team to successfully meet their goals and the goals in the communications strategic plan.
• Oversees and leads a team of communication and marketing strategists to plan and implement a new operating model for integrated distributed communications and marketing - unifying, promoting and elevating the portfolio reputation – working with the central Communications team to support and enhance relationships and strategic priorities. E.g., UBCO collaboration; Indigenous Initiatives; international partner universities and institutions (both academic and research).
• Builds a central communications team within the portfolio and lays out a clear framework for communications including governance, review processes, escalation mechanisms, policies and procedures, and roles and responsibilities.
• Designs, develops and implements an effective and appropriate organizational structure and team; including management and mentoring of staff responsible for portfolio-wide communications and marketing activities.
• Plays a leadership role in developing systems and strategies to streamline and optimize work across the portfolio.
• Cultivation and maintenance of relationships beneficial to advancing the portfolio’s interests with a wide variety of interest groups including faculty, public affairs, government offices, other institutions and professional associations, donors and funders.
• Creates and fosters an environment of collaboration, innovation, best practice sharing, and strong partnership, working with other communicators across the portfolio.
• Works closely with project management and change management units within the portfolio units to ensure communications strategies are aligned strategically and appropriately.
• Identifies workforce value-add opportunities and hires and supervises external consultants and contractors as needed, to drive optimal communications, engagement and marketing results.
• Oversees and manages the development of guiding documents and artefacts including design systems, content style guide, brand guide, and voice and tone guidelines to ensure that communications are consistent, accessible, inclusive, and engaging across all SCS channels.
• Leads development of processes, documentation, and tools to plan, prioritize, and evaluate projects and initiatives effectively and efficiently. Leads the building, optimizing, and maintaining of sustainable and scalable processes, tools, and artifacts to support collaborative, efficient, and flexible ways of working.
• Leads ongoing individual and team professional development conversations and plans to support individual growth and learning as well as team development.
• Recommends and manages relationships with external contractors and suppliers, including contract management while ensuring key deliverables are achieved on schedule and within budget

Research, Evaluation, and Reporting

• Identifies annual goals, project objectives and key results, benchmarking, and measurement tools.
• Reviews processes and measures unit satisfaction and preferences regarding workflow and leads formal and informal user, audience and demographic research to understand unit needs, behaviours, and perceptions, and trends for continuous improvement and planning.
• Analyses metrics from across functions within the portfolio to identify gaps, opportunities, and areas of further research/experimentation.
• Develops reports and presentations for sharing metrics with Executive Director VPA, Faculties and campus partners.
• Leads, develops, and implements ongoing evaluation and reporting plans for team-wide outcomes, learnings, and findings. Specifically, identifying annual KPIs, benchmarking, and key measurement tools.
• Taking a data driven decision-making approach, incorporating digital and media analysis, metrics and measurements, identifies ways to constantly innovate and update the communications approach, ensuring the goals and objectives of the Communications Strategic Plan and Provost priorities are achieved.
• Maintains a current knowledge of trends, research, and best practices.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Consequence of Error/Judgement

This position represents the Provost and units as well as the university as a whole in line with the academic mission. This position holder is required to exercise professional judgment, collegiality, and initiative while undertaking all responsibilities and developing relationships and partnerships.

Incorrect decisions or judgment has a direct and critical impact on the Provost and UBC Strategic Plan as well as programs and services offered across the portfolio. The work will directly affect UBC's reputation with students, faculty, staff, partners and the broader community. Inappropriate actions, errors in performance or indiscretions in judgment can negatively impact the VPA’s working relationships and credibility with a range of critical internal and external partners, may result in legal action or negative public relations, incur inappropriate costs, and/or jeopardize the unit's reputation.

Must be able to work independently and exercise extensive judgment and decision making in managing proactive and reactive communications needs and issues. Every action and decision made could have significant impact on the brand equity and reputation of the Portfolio and potentially the University. The quality, ethics, integrity, and accuracy of communicated information/publications produced by this position are critical to the Portfolio. Given the wide distribution of these materials and the diverse audiences of the Portfolio’s publications e.g., staff, students, Faculties, provincial and federal government leaders and the media as well as across the University including senior administrators, Faculty leadership and other UBC units, inaccurate and inappropriate or poor messaging could seriously affect the image and reputation of the Portfolio and the University as a whole and could result in poor and/or negative perception of the University's academic record.

Poor judgement may lead to poor quality of publications and affect the image of the Faculty or may lead to overly high costs and damage to the Portfolio’s overall budget. Requires professional judgements and initiative in managing special projects. Requires high level of tact, discretion and negotiating skills to effectively bring together and coordinate input from various stakeholders.

Supervision Received
Works with minimal guidance under broad guidelines established through the Executive Director, Provost and VP leadership within the portfolio. The individual in this position will be expected to work independently and report to the Executive Director. This position also works closely with the portfolio’s executive team and with communication professionals across the university, and partner universities.

Supervision Given

This position manages several direct and indirect reports as well as external communications service

providers.

Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Minimum nine years of related experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.

- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own

- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion

Preferred Qualifications

• University degree in Communications or Journalism preferred. Advanced degree preferred.
• Experience with communications services, including experience operating at a strategic level with accountability for communications and marketing.
• Proven track record and demonstrated accomplishments in media relations, and issues management, including strong written and oral skills, ability to assess the broad implication of developments, anticipate issues and develop proactive strategies to mitigate risk.
• Able to work in a complex environment with a diverse range of stakeholders.
• Significant experience and demonstrated skill in developing, implementing and evaluating strategic communications plans, marketing and engagement strategies, including development of brand architecture and brand strategies, and understanding of social media and emerging digital platforms. Innovative thinker with the ability to lead in new directions and position the portfolio as a leader in communications within the University.
• Ability to work effectively and collaboratively within a team environment; ability to motivate a team and develop relationships to move initiatives forward.
• Strong organizational and project management skills. Ability to exercise judgment, tact, discretion and creativity.
• Ability to work under pressure to meet deadlines and to juggle multiple priorities and assignments.
• An expressed commitment and experience with equity-deserving populations and supporting an inclusive work environment.
• Experience initiating, managing, and evaluating complex projects (including digital communications projects) with multiple stakeholders and interests.
• Experience in developing and implementing content strategies for a variety of audiences.
• Experience developing and managing annual budgets and setting project resources and priorities.
• Strong negotiation skills and the ability to build and manage partnerships and work collaboratively with people at all levels of the university community and with internal and external suppliers.
• Proven initiative and creativity and demonstrated skill in developing, implementing, and evaluating strategic communications and marketing plans.
• Ability to effectively recruit, train, supervise, and motivate employees in a team environment. with key stakeholders.
• Ability to work across units, aligning priorities, and building relationships. Ability to interpret complex concepts and communicate effectively to diverse audiences and stakeholders on key strategic issues verbally and in writing.
• Ability to analyze and interpret data, determine implications, and provide recommendations.
• Ability to carry out research, and to experiment, analyze data and evaluate the impact of communications projects and strategies, and to identify approaches to identify opportunities for improvement in future projects.
• Ability to define the problem spaces, identify approaches to work toward effective resolutions.
• Ability to analyze problems, identify key information and issues, and effectively resolve.
• Ability to think conceptually. (i.e. use creative, conceptual, or inductive reasoning or thought processes to identify patterns in complex data, and identify key or underlying issues in complex situations).
• Ability to set priorities, organize workload, and work within deadlines in a busy complex environment.
• Ability to analyze problems, identify key information and issues to identify effective resolutions.
• Ability to plan and complete multiple projects, tasks, and priorities simultaneously
• Ability to think and act independently and see the broad implications of events; evaluate long range opportunities and potential problems.
• Exceptional service orientation and interpersonal skills.
• Comprehensive knowledge of the University, its programs, and personnel would be advantageous.