Director, Public Relations & Content

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

This is a Salt Lake City Office-based position.

The Director, Public Relations & Content is responsible for leading a team shaping and advancing the university’s national communications, content, and media strategy/outreach efforts and driving placements highlighting WGU key messages and thought leaders. In collaboration with social media and conferences & events teams, this leader stewards reputation management and drives positive coverage in relevant national media and via owned content channels. The incumbent, who reports to the Sr. Director, External Communications, is responsible for leading the development and implementation of a strategic communications plan for WGU (including schools, regions, government relations, and 10X entities as well as supporting the communications efforts of the university’s Offices of the University President and Chief Academic Officer/Provost).

In addition to leading the Public Relations & Content team, the Director, Public Relations & Content engages with agencies and vendors, develops short-term and long-term plans, and coordinates promotional efforts with Marketing. The Director, Public Relations & Content is responsible for the development of reputation-building collateral, including briefs, annual reports, blog posts, op-eds, articles, presentations, including video, and press materials to influence federal and state policy contributors, higher education leaders, media, employers, and philanthropies.

The major accountabilities of the position are developing strategic communications plans, messaging, and strategies and leading the day-to-day communications functions for the university. With media relations as a priority, the incumbent will be responsible for ensuring that the content created and distributed by the department is strategic, on message, and top quality. The Director will work closely with senior leaders across the university on media relations and thought leadership initiatives. The leader will provide guidance, assistance, and coaching to members of the team.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

• Develop a multi-year university strategic communications plan that contributes to core university objectives, particularly related to expanding access to education for strategic audiences like low income, rural, first-generation, and historically underserved learners.
• Lead the efforts to develop and implement PR plans and content strategies, which include media relations, reputation enhancement/management, and thought leadership.
• Build relationships of trust and collaboration across the Outreach team (Marketing Communications, Regional Operations, Government Relations, etc.) and with cross-university partners, including C-level executives, SVPs, and Communications professionals of all levels across: Office of the President, Office of the Provost, Academic Schools, WGU Labs, WGU Academy, Shared Services (EdTech, Financial Aid, Advancement, etc.), and other departments.

• Ensure university spokespeople are ready for public-facing opportunities, aligning on briefs for panels, media interviews, etc.
• Inspire and coordinate with a team of communications professionals across the School of Health, School of Education, School of Business, School of IT, 10X Entities (Academy, Advancement, LABS/College Innovation Network, Juvo,), 7 Regions/Government Relations/Strategic Partnerships), Office of the President, Office of the Chief Academic Officer.

• Coordinate planning to execute critical communications initiatives and achieve University growth and cost efficiency targets, including specific audience, geographic market, and academic program goals.
• Contribute to university-wide communications standards and calendars, including for owned social media, content (blogs/newsletters), events, and media engagement opportunities.
• Direct the workflow of the Public Relations & Content department, leading and motivating a team focused on building awareness and reputation.
• Drive performance with a proven capacity to build and execute against OKRs.