Public Sector Strategy Senior Communications Lead

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At Crowe, you can build a meaningful and rewarding career. With real flexibility to balance work with life moments, you’re trusted to deliver results and make an impact. We embrace you for who you are, care for your well-being, and nurture your career. Everyone has equitable access to opportunities for career growth and leadership. Over our 80-year history, delivering excellent service through innovation has been a core part of our DNA across our audit, tax, and consulting groups. That’s why we continuously invest in innovative ideas, such as AI-enabled insights and technology-powered solutions, to enhance our services. Join us at Crowe and embark on a career where you can help shape the future of our industry.

Job Description:

The California State Controller’s Office (SCO) is currently implementing a large and complex SaaS solution to support the California State Payroll System (CSPS) project. CSPS is a massive project, and the implementation includes both Personnel and Payroll functionality to support the needs of some 300,000 employees across 160 agencies and 21 bargaining units. With an estimated project budget exceeding $1 billion and staffing approaching 200 IT professionals, this highly complex effort is expected to continue for the next several years.

The Senior Communications Lead is responsible for assessing needs, defining alternatives, and developing and delivering project and project team communications in the following areas;

• Develop and deliver internal CSPS project team communications strategies that ensure consistent understanding of project components and events across functional, technical, OCM, IV&V and other workstreams.
• Lead/coordinate communication activities with the OCM and PMO Communication specialists.
• Provide public affairs and public relations expertise in assisting with development and delivery of planned communications to external stakeholders and agencies
• As directed by the CSPS Project Manager, develop and deliver executive level presentations and written reports to communicate major events, risks/issues, alternatives analysis and required decisions, or other items.
• Assist in ongoing evaluation and updating of the CSPS Communications Plan, including providing recommendations and assessing the impact of potential changes in communication strategies and tactics.

Additional Qualifications

The Senior Communications Lead role requires proven project management skills in a highly complex and large-scale IT implementation. The successful candidate will need to work well in a dynamic environment, providing exceptional client service with outstanding professionalism. The role requires direct interaction with client and system integrator staff, as well as:    

• Minimum of 7 years of experience with large IT software or infrastructure projects
• Possession of (a) a bachelor’s degree, and (b) a valid Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI), which will be verified during the Request for Offer (RFO) process.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with a commitment to client service and professionalism
• Possess conceptual thinking skills, creativity and flexibility
• An understanding of organizational change management concepts and tools
• Strong analytical, organizational and core project management skills
• Work well both independently and in a team
• Must be self-sufficient and have the ability to self-manage
• Experienced and comfortable in Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Ability to learn quickly and adapt with other technology applications in day-to-day work

Other

• Candidates will need to complete and pass a background check conducted by SCO prior to beginning work
• Remote work is allowed, but staff must be based in the continental United States. With advance notice, project staff will occasionally need to travel to Sacramento for project meetings.
• Visio experience is desirable, but not required.
• Normal working hours are 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific time. All staff, regardless of location, are required to perform duties within those hours.

We expect the candidate to uphold Crowe’s values of Care, Trust, Courage, and Stewardship. These values define who we are. We expect all of our people to act ethically and with integrity at all times.

The wage range for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. The disclosed range estimate has not been