Strategic Communications Operations Manager

Summary of Responsibilities:

The Strategic Communications Operations Manager oversees the day-to-day operations of the Strategic Communications team, ensuring departmental priorities are translated into clear action and communications initiatives move efficiently from direction through execution and completion. Reporting directly to the Executive Director of Strategic Communications, this role serves as an operational partner who translates strategic direction into coordinated workflows, assignments, timelines, and follow-through across the team.

The Strategic Communications Operations Manager exercises independent judgment in managing team workflow, sequencing work, coordinating resources, resolving routine operational challenges, and making day-to-day decisions within established communications strategies and departmental priorities. The role creates operational clarity across a multi-functional communications team and enables the Executive Director to maintain greater focus on communications strategy, executive counsel, institutional priorities, and stakeholder leadership.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities:

1. Oversee Day-to-Day Strategic Communications Operations

• Oversee the daily operating rhythm of the Strategic Communications team by translating direction from the Executive Director into clear priorities, assignments, expectations, and next steps.
• Maintain visibility across active communications initiatives, upcoming priorities, deadlines, dependencies, and team capacity to ensure work progresses toward completion.
• Exercise independent judgment in sequencing work, coordinating resources, adjusting workflows, and resolving routine operational challenges within established departmental priorities.
• Identify competing priorities, capacity constraints, missed dependencies, or execution risks and determine appropriate operational solutions when possible, escalating significant strategic or priority decisions to the Executive Director when necessary.
• Establish and maintain operational processes that create clarity, accountability, consistency, and effective collaboration across the Strategic Communications team.
• Anticipate upcoming operational needs and proactively prepare the team for significant institutional initiatives, events, campaigns, announcements, and communications periods.

2. Translate Executive Direction into Team Activation

• Serve as an operational extension of the Executive Director by translating strategic direction, decisions, and communications priorities into actionable assignments across the Strategic Communications team.
• Receive communications needs and direction from the Executive Director and determine the appropriate team members, resources, sequence, and operational approach needed for activation.
• Develop project and communications briefs as needed to provide teammates with clear objectives, audiences, deliverables, context, expectations, and desired outcomes.
• Track decisions and action items resulting from Executive Director meetings and conversations and ensure appropriate follow-through across the department.
• Prepare summaries, status updates, communications calendars, briefing materials, and other operational information that enables the Executive Director to quickly assess progress, risks, upcoming needs, and decisions requiring attention.
• Anticipate information, approvals, decisions, or resources needed from the Executive Director and proactively surface them at the appropriate time.
• Protect the Executive Director's capacity by independently resolving routine operational matters and elevating issues that require strategic direction, executive authority, or significant reprioritization.

3. Lead Team Operating Rhythm and Accountability

• Lead recurring Strategic Communications operational meetings focused on priorities, deliverables, deadlines, dependencies, upcoming communications needs, and execution.
• Establish clear meeting agendas and ensure meetings result in defined decisions, owners, deadlines, and next steps.
• Follow up with teammates on agreed-upon deliverables and deadlines to maintain momentum and accountability across departmental priorities.
• Partner closely with the Project Lead, who maintains project plans and the team's project-management system, to ensure project information accurately reflects departmental priorities and operational decisions.
• Review departmental workload and upcoming needs with the Executive Director and Project Lead to identify potential conflicts, resource constraints, or execution risks.
• Facilitate communication and coordin