Responsibilities

• Strategically manage and expand IHME’s network of global media contacts, key opinion leaders, policymakers, and other stakeholders; proactively identify opportunities for new relationships and strengthen relationships with journalists to disseminate IHME’s evidence-based research effectively and seek to impact global health policy.
• Ensure inquiries and requests from journalists for findings and interviews with experts in IHME’s research network are handled in a timely and professional way.
• Oversee and provide media training to faculty and staff to help them prepare for interviews.
• Develop and execute creative strategies to build owned media platforms, including podcast and newsletter.
• Manage relationships with communications firms and external consultants when necessary.
• Serve as a spokesperson for IHME if necessary.
• Maintain confidentiality of sensitive information.
• Supervise employees, to include hiring and training, assigning work hours, managing workflow, priority setting, contributing to professional growth and ensuring team members have the clarity and guidance needed to be accountable for producing high-quality, accurate work.
• Create and manage work plans for team members, hold regular check-ins to monitor work progress, answer questions, and troubleshoot as needed.
• Provide direction, coaching, and support, ensuring team members have the clarity and guidance needed to be accountable for their work.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in journalism, communications, or related field plus 10 to 15 years of experience in a role or roles in media relations, public relations, or a combination of work in journalism and communications with internal and external stakeholders and influential organizations and individuals.
• Strong management and leadership capabilities, demonstrated through supervising and developing the work of staff members, freelancers, and/or external vendors — or through leading projects.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to foster productive relationships with colleagues at all levels of the organization including senior leadership, external partners, and the Institute’s third-party service providers.
• Professional maturity and sound judgment, with the adaptability to navigate change and a solutions-oriented mindset, working both independently and collaboratively to achieve objectives.
• Ability to take technical and highly scientific research and make it relevant, clear, and concise for the public.
• Superb time management skills, with demonstrated experience managing multiple work streams, shifting priorities, and time-sensitive deadlines while keeping the team accountable and on track.
• Committed to a focus on accountability and delivering results while able to meet ongoing deadlines including those that are time sensitive.Comfortable learning and using AI tools as part of daily workflow as appropriate, with an openness to adopting new technologies that improve team efficiency and content quality.
• Creative, strategic thinker with project management experience translating ideas into well-executed plans.
• Excellent communications skills, both written and oral.
• Outstanding organizational skills, attention to detail, commitment to accuracy and high-quality work.

Preferred

• Substantive knowledge of public health research and policy, data science, and other related research fields.
• Ability to work with academic researchers and comprehend peer-reviewed health research.
• Prior experience transforming statistical information into compelling written and spoken content targeted at a general audience.
• Proficiency in more than one language to lead dissemination of multilingual media materials.