Vice President, External Communications

USA (On-site)

$210K/yr – $298K/yrSenior Level15+ years expFull time

Posted 2 days ago

Job Summary

Own and lead UKG’s global external communications program to shape reputation, market leadership, and executive counsel, coordinating a modern, audience-driven engine across PR, social, thought leadership, and analyst relations.

  • Advise the CEO and executive team on reputation strategy and external narrative.
  • Build customer voices and measurable outcomes into the reputation engine.

Job Description

Responsibilities

  • Shape Reputation & Market Leadership
  • Set and lead UKG’s global external communications strategy to strengthen UKG’s reputation, differentiation, and leadership in Workforce Operations.
  • Translate UKG’s enterprise narrative into sustained external conversations that build belief in who UKG is, why we matter, and how we are different.
  • Shape market perception around the forces transforming work and business, including workforce operations, frontline work, AI, productivity, and the flow of work.
  • Move UKG from episodic visibility to sustained authority in the conversations we want to lead, using executives, research, customer outcomes, product innovation, and proprietary insight to reinforce a consistent story over time.
  • Lead a Modern External Communications Engine
  • Lead an integrated global organization across PR, Social, AI Discovery, Thought Leadership & Newsroom, Analyst Relations, and international communications—bringing specialized disciplines together around one narrative and shared reputation outcomes.
  • Build an audience-led, proactive operating model that starts with the conversations shaping the market rather than the moments UKG has to announce.
  • Create the external foundation for the broader customer journey: Communications builds belief and reputation; Marketing creates buyer relevance; Product and Sales provide proof and value.
  • Oversee the external dimension of reputation risk and crisis response, including media strategy, external stakeholder communications, social response, and reputation monitoring in close partnership with Corporate Communications.

Requirements

  • 15+ years of progressive experience in external communications, public relations, corporate communications, reputation, or related disciplines, including significant senior leadership experience.
  • Demonstrated success leading a complex, global external communications organization across multiple communications disciplines.
  • Proven track record building or transforming a modern communications function, including organizational design, talent assessment, capability building, and leadership development.
  • Deep expertise in reputation strategy, narrative development, media relations, executive counsel, issues management, and external storytelling.
  • Strong business judgment and demonstrated ability to connect reputation and communications strategy to growth, market positioning, customer priorities, and business outcomes.
  • Exceptional executive presence with the ability to advise CEOs and senior executives, influence enterprise decisions, and operate effectively in high-stakes environments.
  • Established credibility and relationships with top-tier business, technology, and/or industry media and other influential external stakeholders.
  • Demonstrated ability to build high-performing teams, develop leaders, and drive alignment across complex, highly matrixed organizations.

Preferred

  • Significant leadership experience in enterprise B2B SaaS, technology, or another complex technology-driven business.
  • Experience overseeing product and technology PR, analyst relations, thought leadership, social, international communications, and emerging digital or AI-discovery capabilities.
  • Experience establishing category leadership or repositioning a large enterprise technology company in the market.
  • Strong understanding of how AI, search, social, and changing information-discovery behaviors are reshaping reputation and influence.
UKG logo

UKG

3.4 Glassdoor

UKG is the Workforce Operating Platform that puts workforce understanding to work. With the world's largest collection of workforce insights, and people-first AI, our ability to reveal unseen ways to build trust, amplify productivity, and empower talent, is unmatched. It's this expertise that equips our customers with the intelligence to solve any challenge in any industry — because great organizations know their workforce is their competitive edge.

Founded in 1977
16K employees (576 in marketing)
55% recommend to a friend
51% CEO approval

Salaries

Posted range

$210K/yr – $298K/yr

Taken straight from the job posting.

See all UKG salaries

Marketing Team

Marketing Team Size
363 (2% of company)
Median Career Experience
18 years
Median Tenure
4.8 years
Marketing Roles Posted (Last 30 Days)
2

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1.3M
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Traffic Source Mix
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29.2%
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45.1%
Referral
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Social
1.1%
Paid
1.1%

Headcount Trend

Current headcount: ~16K

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