Associate Commissioner, External Affairs

Job Description

About the Agency:

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation Development (HPD) promotes quality and affordability in the city's housing, and diversity and strength in the city’s neighborhoods because every New Yorker deserves a safe, affordable place to live in a neighborhood they love.
- We maintain building and resident safety and health
- We create opportunities for New Yorkers through housing affordability
- We engage New Yorkers to build and sustain neighborhood strength and diversity

Your Role:

The Office of External Affairs advances and promotes the agency's priorities in support of HPD's mission. It is comprised of two divisions: the Division of Government Affairs and the Division of Communications.

The Division of Government Affairs works with City, State, and federal elected officials, as well as agencies, policy makers, advocates, and other stakeholders to assess, craft, and secure legislative changes needed to implement HPD’s goals of creating and preserving affordable housing and protecting the quality and safety of the City’s housing stock.

The Division of Communications crafts, shapes, and distributes content in various media sources to promote the agency's programs, efforts, and mission to the public sphere.
In this role, you will be responsible for leading external affairs and communications efforts, collaborating with elected officials, agencies, policy makers, advocates, and other stakeholders, and representing the Commissioner at various events and meetings.
As a senior official within the agency, you will be responsible for making sure your office and senior leadership work together to execute the Commissioner’s, Deputy Mayor’s, and Mayor’s initiatives and policy objectives.
In close coordination with external agency partners, you will also be responsible for facilitating improved communication, coordination, and collaboration within your team, among other teams at the agency, and with external stakeholders.

Your Responsibilities:

In coordination with leadership from the Chief of Staff and Deputy Commissioner for External Affairs the Associate Commissioner will:
- Develop and execute robust external affairs and communications strategies for the agency, including for public events, brand building, press relations, digital media, issue-based campaigns, and legislator and general stakeholder relationship management.
- Manage creative production and message consistency of the launch of any advertising, traditional media coverage, web content, and social media efforts.
- Oversee all public relations activities and formal communications materials generated by the agency, including press releases.
- Ensure the Commissioner is fully prepared for meetings, speaking engagements, and other public appearances and/or represent the Commissioner at external meetings and events as required, fostering positive relationships with key stakeholders.
- Manage New York City’s affordable housing legislative agenda at the city, state, and federal levels. Identify hearings and bills that relate and impact the agency’s ability to deliver on our agenda.
- Collaborate with policy makers, advocates, and planners to assess and craft housing policies for managing the agency’s external positioning on any relevant non-housing legislation or policies.
- Ensure the agency is adequately prepared for public hearings and respond to inquiries from the general public and elected officials to execute on successfully advancing those goals
- Build and sustain strong team culture based on equity, inclusivity collaboration, and responsiveness.

Preferred skills

- Exceptional team- and project-management skills, including ability to execute. Proven ability to: manage multiple teams and complex projects with multiple internal and external stakeholders; receive direction and anticipate next steps; think through, communicate, document, organize, and execute on project goals and keep other team members on schedule. Ability to manage up, down, and across teams. Attentive to the details, organized, and able to follow through.
- Subject-matter expertise. Knowledge of New York City government, affordable housing, urban planning principles and processes; basic understanding of real estate development principles; masters degree in urban planning, urban studies, public policy, real estate or a related field; substantial professional experience in a related field.
- Outstanding communication skills. Extremely strong written, verbal, and presentation skills. Proven ability to produce high-quality materials in a variety of formats for internal and external audiences.
- Good judgment. Ability to analyze a situation, understand what is needed, understand when additional input is needed, flag or resolve issues as necessary, and escalate when app