Director

Responsibilities

• Account Leadership: Serve as the main day-to-day point of contact for a portfolio of client accounts, owning the strategy, results, and relationship for each. Build communications plans with clear goals, run client meetings, turn decisions into action items, and report progress to clients.
• Client Counsel: Provide strategic counsel and guidance to client leadership, working independently to anticipate and meet their needs. Help clients see around corners on policy and news developments, and lead crisis communications and rapid response when the moment demands it.
• Earned Media & Press Relations: Maintain and leverage relationships with top-tier reporters, editors, and producers across national, D.C., and trade press. Shepherd complex stories from pitch to publication, ensuring clients’ viewpoints are represented and their voices are heard. Prepare client spokespeople with briefing memos, message training, and practice ahead of interviews.
• Writing & Editing: Draft pitches, press releases, op-eds, statements, and briefing memos quickly, and sharpen the work of the junior team so that everything that lands in a client’s inbox meets the highest standard of quality. Translate technical energy policy into language that reaches reporters, policymakers, and the public.
• Digital & Content Strategy: Oversee content across accounts, including newsletters, LinkedIn thought leadership, and paid social, ensuring consistent voice and strategic relevance. Identify opportunities to elevate client profiles through owned channels alongside earned media.
• Media & Policy Monitoring: Keep a finger on the pulse of the media and the policy landscape — tracking new hires, reporter moves, trends in coverage, and emerging issues — and use that insight to counsel clients and pivot strategies in real time.
• Business Development: Identify opportunities for new business and for expanding existing engagements, and assist leadership in drafting proposals, scoping work, and participating in pitches. Represent Echo at conferences and industry events and help build the firm’s network in clean energy.
• Technology & Efficiency: Embrace and help integrate AI tools and other emerging technologies to work smarter and deliver more value to clients. Be a model for the team in identifying where new tools can sharpen output or save time.

Requirements

• Six to eight years of communications experience, with a proven track record of leadership in high-pressure environments like Capitol Hill, political campaigns, public affairs firms, major advocacy organizations, or news outlets.
• Demonstrated success leading client accounts or campaigns and serving as a trusted advisor to senior executives or political leaders.
• Experience managing or mentoring junior staff.
• Keen grasp of the clean energy, climate and conservation issues at center stage on Capitol Hill and in the states.
• Understanding of how federal and state energy policy is made, and of what resonates with members of Congress, state lawmakers, regulators, and investors.
• Ability to master technical policy subjects quickly and translate them into accessible, compelling narratives.
• Strong writer and stronger editor — crisp, persuasive, and fast across formats, with strong attention to detail.
• Proven ability to place stories, staff interviews, and shape coverage so that it reflects a client’s point of view.
• Experience managing crisis communications and rapid response.
• Highly organized, with the ability to manage multiple assignments at once and prioritize to meet deadlines.

Preferred

• Experience with beehiiv and newsletters, paid social and digital campaigns, especially on LinkedIn, is a plus.
• Connections within the clean energy and climate advocacy communities are a plus.

Benefits

• more than 30 days of paid time off (vacation, sick, personal, and federal holidays); 100% employer-paid health insurance; dental and vision insurance; a retirement plan with employer matching; professional development support; parental leave; and new business bonuses.