Director - External Communications

1.0 FTE Full time Day - 08 Hour R2550378 Hybrid 108470001 Communications Other PALO ALTO, 1520 Page Mill Rd, California

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Day - 08 Hour (United States of America)

This is a Stanford Health Care job.

A Brief Overview
Reporting to the Sr. Director of External Communications, the Director of External Communications this role is responsible for managing media relations, enhancing the organization's reputation, and serving as the Public Information Officer during emergency situations for SHC and the School of Medicine. It involves crafting compelling narratives, responding to media inquiries, proactively engaging with journalists, and effectively addressing reputational challenges to ensure clear and accurate communication during critical times.

Locations
Stanford Health Care

What you will do

• Integrated Communications Strategy:
  

  • Develop and implement comprehensive external communications strategies that align with Stanford Medicine’s Integrated Strategic Plan and enterprise-wide priorities..
  • Collaborate with cross-functional communications teams across Stanford Medicine and Stanford University to ensure consistent messaging across all platforms and channels.
  • Monitor industry trends and best practices to continuously refine communication strategies.
• Crisis Communications and Issues Management:
  

  • Coordinate with key internal stakeholders and subject matter experts to ensure timely and accurate responses during crises and other situations.
  • Demonstrate a clear understanding of policies, processes and perspectives needed to ensure alignment on a communications approach.
  • Develop tailored communications plans and campaigns to support organizational priorities.
  • Oversee the creation and dissemination of an issues-driven media monitoring report to senior leaders.
• Content Development:
  

  • Create and oversee the production of high-quality content for press releases, media kits, and other external communications materials.
  • Ensure all content align with the organization's voice and messaging approach.
  • Oversee compliance with Stanford Medicine’s guidance on name use.
• Earned Media Strategy:
  

  • Identify and pursue opportunities for positive media coverage through strategic outreach and relationship building.
  • Develop and maintain relationships with subject matter experts and facilitate media coverage opportunities as needed
  • Monitor media coverage and analyze trends to inform future proactive media strategies.
• Public Information Officer Capacity.
  

  • Serve as PIO and lead coordination and planning for communications efforts for the Hospital Incident Command Center in collaboration with Stanford Health Care’s Office Emergency Management.
• Executive Leadership and Internal Stakeholder Engagement:
  

  • Develop working relationships with key institutional leaders to facilitate development and execution of strategies to reach their external constituents.
  • Foster strong relationships with internal stakeholders across entities and departments to garner clear understanding of ongoing and emerging priorities
  • Coordinate with other communicators to ensure strategic alignment.
• Impact and Outcomes Measurement and Monitoring:
  

  • Develop, run, and analyze day-to-day metrics for communications programs by using quantitative and qualitative analytics tools to evaluate performance. These responsibilities will include developing a set of dashboards to present to leadership. This role will use learnings from the data to adjust the communications strategy in real- time and refocus team efforts, as needed.
• Team Management:
  

  • Lead and collaborate with a team of communications professionals, fostering a high-performing and supporting work environment.
  • Set clear goals and expectations to ensure timely delivery of communications initiatives and tactics

Education Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university with major work in healthcare management, communications or a related field.

Experience Qualifications

• Eight (8) years of experience that is directly related to the duties and responsibilities specified

• Four (4) years supervisory experience, preferably of multi-person teams

• Significant experience directing and managing vendors and agencies

• Proven track record in using analytics to drive better decision making and strategy

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Experience Base

• External Communications:
  

  • Corporate-Side Experience – In-house Public Relations and Communications, including Corporate Communications and Media Relations. Must include proven success in positive Reputation Management and Crisis Management. Proven skilled at building high-performing teams, which includes external partners

• Technical Proficiency – Demonstrated capabilities for content development, strategic planning, media handling and other essential functions.

• Health Care Experience – This individual must have current or previous experience in the Health Care sector, which could include a wide variety of categories—Providers, Insurance, Pharma/OTC, Devices, with Community and/or AMC (Academic Medical Center) experience a strong plus.

• Organizational Development – Demonstrated success building organizational capabilities through functional design, organizational, and hiring. Additionally, this individual must be skilled at building and developing a world-class bench of external resources to draw upon when required.

• Skill Set:
  

  • World-class messaging, communication strategy expertise (technically proficient)
  • Translates core business strategies into actionable initiatives (service orientation)
  • Ability to express ideas clearly both verbally and in writing (communication excellence)
  • Understands dynamics of communications environment (media savvy)
  • Proactive orientation (self-starter)
  • Comfortable incorporating data into planning and implementation (data driven)
  • Adept at adjusting plans to meet changing circumstances (flexible)
  • Organizational skills to continuously prioritize competing requests (bias for action)
  • Ability to cultivate and manage internal and external relationships (networked)
  • Influencing skills (proven ability to persuade others towards an idea or goal)
  • Organized and attention-to-detail (strong tactical execution, prioritizes accordingly)
  • Innovative (need fresh, imaginative thinking, can connect disparate dots)
  • Intellectual horsepower (highly creative and strategic)
  • Highly resourceful (stretches people and money; compresses time)

These principles apply to ALL employees:

SHC Commitment to Providing an Exceptional Patient & Family Experience

Stanford Health Care sets a high standard for delivering value and an exceptional experience for our patients and families. Candidates for employment and existing employees must adopt and execute C-I-CARE standards for all of patients, families and towards each other. C-I-CARE is the foundation of Stanford’s patient-experience and represents a framework for patient-centered interactions. Simply put, we do what it takes to enable and empower patients and families to focus on health, healing and recovery.

You will do this by executing against our three experience pillars, from the patient and family’s perspective:

• Know Me: Anticipate my needs and status to deliver effective care

• Show Me the Way: Guide and prompt my actions to arrive at better outcomes and better health

• Coordinate for Me: Own the complexity of my care through coordination

Equal Opportunity Employer Stanford Health Care (SHC) strongly values diversity and is committed to equal opportunity and non-discrimination in all of its policies and practices, including the area of employment. Accordingly, SHC does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity and/or expression, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, political beliefs, marital status, medical condition, genetic information, veteran status, or disability, or the perception of any of the above. People of all genders, members of all racial and ethnic groups, people with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply. Qualified applicants with criminal convictions will be considered after an individualized assessment of the conviction and the job requirements.

Base Pay Scale: Generally starting at $79.21 - $104.97 per hour

The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to, internal equity, experience, education, specialty and training. This pay scale is not a promise of a particular wage.