Senior Account Director, Public Affairs

ABOUT ORCHESTRA

Orchestra is a strategic communications and marketing company built for today’s complex and fragmented world. From decoding audiences to designing bold strategies, Orchestra integrates people, platforms, and stories that stick to help clients build lasting influence. The company offers programs that span from the highest level strategic business counsel through to tactical execution. Orchestra brings together 700+ people with experience across consumer and lifestyle, technology, nonprofit and philanthropy, real estate, sports, travel, hospitality, and more. Made up of leading firms BerlinRosen, Civitas Public Affairs Group, Derris, Glen Echo Group, Inkhouse, M18, Message Lab, Onward and Small Girls PR. It also launched Brightmode, a talent acquisition firm for communications professionals, and Versus Media Group, a strategy-first political media team. Learn more at www.orchestraco.com.

ABOUT THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS TEAM

Our Public Affairs team is a group of strategists, campaign managers and communications experts who help clients navigate high-stakes political, regulatory and reputational challenges. We lead integrated campaigns across media, stakeholder engagement, advocacy, research and paid media, coordinating seamlessly across internal teams and external partners to drive outcomes for clients across technology, infrastructure, energy, healthcare, nonprofits, land use, education, and other sectors. The team works on fast-moving state and national campaigns across a wide range of issues, collaborating with a strong network of advisors, consultants and local partners in markets across the country.

ABOUT THIS ROLE

As a Senior Account Director on our Public Affairs team, you'll serve as a trusted counselor to leading companies and organizations navigating complex policy, regulatory and reputational challenges. You'll design and lead integrated public affairs campaigns that influence decision-makers, shape public narratives, build coalitions and advance clients' business objectives. Working alongside a team of policy experts, campaign strategists and communications professionals, you'll develop bold strategies, provide high-level client counsel, lead high-performing teams and help grow our practice through exceptional client service and new business development.

Role location: This role is available in our Washington, D.C. office on a hybrid basis. The team is in-office 3 days per week.

ACCOUNTABILITIES AND QUALIFICATIONS

As a Senior Account Director on the Public Affairs team, you will…

• Lead the development and execution of integrated public affairs campaigns that combine communications, stakeholder engagement, coalition building, digital strategies and research to achieve client objectives
• Serve as a trusted day-to-day strategic advisor to senior clients by anticipating challenges, identifying opportunities and providing thoughtful counsel
• Translate complex policy, regulatory and business challenges into integrated public affairs strategies that influence key audiences and deliver measurable results
• Manage a team of junior staff on each account you lead, strategically influencing deliverables’ quality and staff development by delegating, modeling smart practices and providing feedback
• Work closely with senior team leaders on capacity planning to ensure that the team is running efficiently
• Coordinate across internal and external teams to deploy integrated services (media relations, digital advertising, research) to meet your clients’ goals
• Identify opportunities to build coalitions, activate third-party validators and engage stakeholders that strengthen clients' public affairs objectives
• Drive new story angles and other media opportunities for clients, conceptualizing creative feature stories even when there is no news to announce and identify new targets across print, broadcast, radio and podcasts and trying new approaches until the story lands
• Lead thought leadership programs for executives, drafting persuasive and compelling pitches and op-eds on behalf of a client; identify new opportunities to raise an executive’s visibility through awards or conferences
• Contribute to business development and growth efforts

Essential skills:

• 7+ years of experience in public affairs and communications, including the ability to translate complex issues into simple and compelling public affairs campaigns for both general and policymaker audiences
• Experience advising senior executives through complex communications, policy or reputational challenges
• Strong storytelling skills and experience designing and executing multi-channel campaigns that incorporate media relations, paid marketing, events/activations and grasstops/grassroots engagement
• Savviness and creativity in media relations and pitching, social media content ideation and influencer engagement with the knowledge to identify new targets and thoughtful angles until the story lands
• Experience with thought leadership and executive profile raising a plus
• Organized and used to a fast-paced environment with the capability to handle multiple assignments at once, work quickly and meet deadlines; strong project management skills, including experience managing both up and down across teams
• Proven ability to become a savvy and nimble student of the “news” and quickly identify new media opportunities and narratives to insert our clients’ voices into the news cycle
• Demonstrated curiosity and the ability to quickly become fluent in new industries, technologies and policy issues

WORKING AT ORCHESTRA

Salary range (commensurate with experience and skills): $135,000-$145,000

Senior Directors are eligible for end of year bonuses based on firm, team and individual performance.

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