The Director of Public Relations will join the UCSF Office of Communications (OC) at a time of significant investment and expansion, which are intended to better serve the growing needs of UCSF’s mission and strategic initiatives. A key leader in the OC’s Public Affairs team, the Director’s primary responsibility will be to develop and implement communications strategies that promote the clinical and business priorities of UCSF Health—the health care delivery enterprise of UCSF.
In this role, the Director will collaborate closely with the UCSF Health Marketing team to co-develop integrated marketing-communications (marcomm) strategies that promote UCSF Health’s growth strategy, priority service lines, affiliations with other health care partners, and national and local reputation. The Director reports to the executive director of Public Affairs in the Office of Communications, with a dotted-line reporting relationship to UCSF Health’ Vice President of Marketing.
As a deputy to the executive director of Public Affairs, the Director will ensure the integration of UCSF Health’s marcomm strategies with the Public Affairs team’s media relations and owned content strategies supporting UCSF’s clinical, research, education, public service missions. This role requires significant communications experience in a health care delivery setting and, preferably, a strong understanding of how an academic medical center functions and current business challenges and sensitivities in health care. Among its responsibilities will be developing strategies to position the UCSF Health CEO and other clinical leadership as thought leaders on issues that are critical to the future of UCSF.
The Director will manage a team of public information representatives who are the primary news media liaisons for UCSF’s clinicians, front-line care teams, and faculty, and will serve as the primary editor for the team. As part of the Public Affairs leadership team, the Director will work closely with:
- the managing editor of Owned Media to develop and leverage stories across our owned platforms, identifying the most strategically important and compelling stories to share across a range of targeted audiences,
- a counterpart overseeing Research/Education communications to develop and leverage compelling stories that illustrate the advantages of UCSF’s integrated academic medical center enterprise, and
- the marketing strategy director responsible for assuring the growth of the clinical priority areas.
The Director also will collaborate closely with the OC’s Strategic Communications team to manage sensitive issues involving UCSF’s clinical enterprise. The Public Affairs team also works closely with counterparts in the OC’s Brand Strategy, Content Strategy, Internal Communications, and Central Administration on integrated communications disseminated across the university and health system. In addition, the Public Affairs team collaborates with University Development & Alumni Relations to support and advance donor and fundraising priorities.
Tactics will include news releases, pitches, ghost-written op-eds, graphics, podcasts, video, press briefings, public forums, and media training.
A significant responsibility of this position is to stay current with a rapidly changing media and digital communications landscape and identify strategies that can reach targeted audiences beyond traditional news media. This includes owned media content distributed via social and paid digital media in geographies with little local earned media infrastructure.
The role will grow with the Public Affairs team, contributing to and/or leading various OC initiatives and priorities, ranging from team building and goal setting to faculty media training and emergency response planning.
The final salary and offer components are subject to additional approvals based on UC policy.
Your placement within the salary range is dependent on a number of factors including your work experience and internal equity within this position classification at UCSF. For positions that are represented by a labor union, placement within the salary range will be guided by the rules in the collective bargaining agreement.
The salary range for this position is $105,900 - $225,900 (Annual Rate).
To learn more about the benefits of working at UCSF, including total compensation, please visit: https://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/compensation-and-benefits/index.html
- Master’s degree in related area and / or equivalent experience / training.
- Bachelor's degree in a related area and 6+ years of directly related work experience including 5+ years of supervisory/management experience; and / or equivalent experience / training.
- Strong knowledge of the concepts, principles and technical aspects of media relations and communications.
- Broad knowledge of the institution, its vision, mission, goals, objectives, infrastructure, programs, policies, and achievements.
- Strong knowledge of principles and practices in sensitive and emergency communications.
- In-depth understanding of best usage of print, broadcast and online media.
- Strong interpersonal and written communications skills, including strong editing skills.
- Skill in conceiving and implementing media relations plans and strategies and in providing leadership to staff and colleagues to achieve desired objectives.
- Skill in visualizing and implementing media programs to showcase the department / unit and communicating the location's desired message.
- Strong supervisory skills; may require budgetary administrative skills.
- Skill to establish an environment of and maintain strict confidentiality.
- Fundamental understanding of health care and biomedical research, and the ensuing judgment to determine which research is newsworthy.
- Ability to communicate complex or health-related information in an accessible and engaging manner.
