Director, Strategic Communications & Marketing (Johns Hopkins Innovation & Commercial Partnership)

Responsibilities

• Ground ICP’s communications and marketing in a deep understanding of its audiences: what companies, investors, partners, faculty and inventors need, how they make decisions, and where they look for information. Use audience research, customer discovery conversations, and insight from ICP colleagues who work with these audiences every day.
• Develop and execute an integrated communications and marketing plan for ICP that advances organizational priorities across Technology Ventures and Corporate Engagement, with clear objectives, audiences, and channels.
• Establish metrics for communications and marketing performance (digital, media, events, and outreach); track progress, benchmark against peer institutions, assess the return on paid advertising and sponsorships, and report results to ICP leadership.
• Advise ICP leadership on communications opportunities and risks.
• Monitor how peer institutions, companies, and the media are talking about university–industry partnership and commercialization, and use those insights to sharpen ICP’s positioning and plans.
• Coordinate communications priorities across ICP teams so that demand from both arms is triaged transparently and resourced against organizational goals.
• Steward the ICP brand architecture, including the umbrella Innovation & Commercial Partnerships identity and its sub-brands (Technology Ventures, Corporate Engagement, and their programs), in alignment with university brand guidelines.
• Codify ICP’s institutional value proposition and external messaging, including why Johns Hopkins partners with industry and what companies can expect, and align teams across ICP around it.
• Lead marketing for ICP programs, events, and offerings, including the corporate front door (corporate.jhu.edu) and its evolution into an integrated digital experience that connects Technology Ventures and the full menu of ways companies can engage with Johns Hopkins across schools and university units.
• Develop a business development messaging and collateral suite that equips ICP staff to position Johns Hopkins as a partner of choice for companies.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Communication, Marketing or related field.
• Ten years of related experience including developing and executing multi-faceted communications efforts to position and elevate the reputation ofan institution and its leadership, with multiple audiences.
• Additional education may substitute for required experience and additional related experience may substitute for required education beyond a high school diploma/graduation equivalent, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula.
• Technical Skills & Expected Level Of Proficiency
• Budgeting - Advanced
• Crisis Communications - Advanced
• Editing - Advanced
• Internal Communications - Advanced
• Media Monitoring and Analysis - Advanced
• Media Relations - Advanced

Preferred

• U.S. Citizen or legal permanent resident required due to Federal Export Controls.
• Understanding of the innovation and commercialization landscape, including technology transfer, startups, venture capital, and industry partnerships.
• Ability to manage competing priorities across multiple internal clients and deliver results under pressure.
• Creativity and entrepreneurial initiative, with comfort navigating ambiguity in a newly formed organization.
• Superior writing and editing skills, with the ability to translate technical and scientific work for business, investor, and general audiences.
• A customer-first mindset: curiosity about the people we serve, empathy for their perspectives and constraints, and the ability to meet them with passion and understanding.
• Familiarity with academic environments and the university communications ecosystem.
• Experience leading a small team, managing budgets, and directing agencies or contractors.
• Demonstrated success building collaborative, trusted relationships and influence across a decentralized, matrixed organization, including with faculty, executives, communications colleagues, and external partners.
• Experience advising senior leaders and managing communications on sensitive or confidential matters with sound judgment and discretion.