Head of Public Affairs and Communications

• Leading Social Purpose Organisation, CEO 2017 Telstra Business Woman of the Year
• Strategic and highly visible role to strengthen SSI’s brand and reputation externally
• Broad remit across Marketing, Communications, Fundraising, Community Engagement and Public Affairs
• Newly created role based in Sydney

Due to significant growth and diversification of services, we are now looking for a new leader to consolidate all stakeholder engagement functions and develop a clear strategy to ensure the organisation is best able to leverage external opportunities to strengthen SSI’s reputation, brand and connections with external and internal stakeholders.

Reporting to the CEO and as a member of the Executive team, you will be a key contributor to SSI’s overarching strategy and responsible for leading a cross functional team spanning communications, marketing, fundraising, government relations and stakeholder engagement. Your broad and highly visible mandate will see you:

• Develop and execute the Public Affairs strategy to support SSI’s corporate direction and build a sustainable reputation
• Act as a strategic communications adviser, providing high-level strategic advice to the Board, CEO and Executive
• Develop and oversee SSI’s government and stakeholder engagement strategy and plan and ensure execution supports the organisation’s strategy and purpose
• Develop SSI’s marketing and communications strategy to ensure purpose is articulated and alignment of messaging across all programs and initiatives
• Build and oversee the fundraising strategy and program
• Oversee community engagement functions and projects
• Manage the development of SSI’s PR and social media strategy
• Develop and lead a high performing team that engages and builds communications capabilities across SSI and connections with community and key external stakeholders
• Implement and re-engineer policies, processes and systems to ensure the function is innovating, evolving and providing effective services to all internal and external stakeholders

About you 

This is your opportunity to really make a difference.

We are looking for someone who is a commercially astute leader in Public Affairs, Communications and Stakeholder Management, has successfully managed cross organisational projects and has the ability to deeply understand our business and how it is perceived from a social perspective. You will have strong strategic planning capability and are highly attuned to the nuances and impact of legislative, regulatory and policy issues. Critical to your success will be your ability to develop and effectively communicate the vision to internal stakeholders as well as being able to influence external stakeholders, financial supporters and decision makers.

Working with culturally and linguistically diverse communities, we are passionate about social justice and diversity, value innovation and are focussed on providing flexible and responsive service to all our clients and stakeholders. 

Our success is defined by the diversity of our people and their alignment behind our purpose. If you are passionate about our cause, have aligned values and pride yourself on working in a highly collegiate way to execute and get things done we’d love to hear from you.

SSI is passionate about social justice and diversity and is committed to being an EEO employer. We encourage applications from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, including those from Aboriginal, Torres Strait Island heritage and people with lived experience of disability. 

We strongly believe in protecting the safety and wellbeing of children and vulnerable communities and take child protection very seriously. All employees will undergo a National Police Clearance and a Working with Children Check as a condition of employment.