Location

St. Louis, MO 63110

Scheduled Hours

40

Position Summary

The Associate Vice Chancellor of Enterprise Communications is Washington University’s senior-most dedicated communications leader and lead strategist on reputation, internal communications, media relations, thought leadership, and issues and crisis management across the institution. The role reports to the Chief Marketing & Communications Officer (CMCO).

The Associate Vice Chancellor of Enterprise Communications protects and advances institutional reputation and trust while furthering the mission and priorities of Washington University, its leadership, and key stakeholders. Serves as chief spokesperson, leads the university through reputational and operational issues and crises, provides strategic counsel to the Chancellor and senior academic and clinical leadership, and manages a cross-functional team of communicators to ensure one coherent institutional voice across a matrixed organization of schools, research institutes, and the academic medical center.

Job Description

Strategic Counsel and Institutional Voice

• Develops and leads, in partnership with the CMCO, a multi-year, university-wide internal and external communications strategy that reflects the institution's academic, research, and clinical missions and its position among peer institutions.
• Serves as the CMCO's principal communications deputy, and as a trusted advisor to the Chancellor, the Board of Trustees, and the executive leadership of the academic medical center, on matters of institutional reputation, positioning, and public trust.
• Serves as a key member of the CMCO's senior leadership team, providing communications counsel that directly informs cabinet-level decision-making and institutional strategic planning.

Internal Communications

• Builds and leads a team dedicated to developing and executing a robust internal communications strategy that reaches a large, distributed workforce of faculty, staff, clinicians, residents, and students across academic and clinical settings.
• Ensures leadership messages, institutional priorities, and change initiatives are communicated clearly and consistently to promote engagement, transparency, and trust among key internal stakeholders.
• Partners with Human Resources and operations leadership on employee and provider communications.

External Communications, Media Relations and Public Affairs

• Acts as the university's chief spokesperson to local, national, and international media; build and sustain relationships with health, science, and higher-education reporters and influencers.
• Oversees a proactive earned-media program that positions university and medical center leaders, faculty, and physician-scientists as authorities in their fields.
• Directs messages development, talking points, and executive media training for the Chancellor and other senior spokespeople.
• Partners closely with Government Relations and University Advancement to develop communications strategies to advance institutional priorities.

Digital Communications and AI

• Sets the strategy for digital transformation across the communications function, including owned channel strategy (web, email, social, and emerging platforms) and the analytics that measure their reach and impact.
• Builds the team's capability to use AI tools responsibly and effectively in content development, audience insight, and measurement, positioning digital and AI fluency as a core, ongoing capability rather than a one-time initiative.

Thought Leadership

• Owns thought leadership as a core, dedicated area of responsibility: build and lead a program that establishes the Chancellor, medical center leadership, faculty, and physician-scientists as authoritative voices on issues central to the institution's academic, research, and clinical missions.
• Identifies and cultivates signature platforms — bylines, editorial partnerships, panels, podcasts, and speaking opportunities — that build sustained credibility with policymakers, media, donors, alumni, commercialization partners, faculty recruits, students, and peer institutions.
• Aligns thought leadership priorities with Government Affairs' policy agenda and Advancement's philanthropic priorities, so institutional voice, policy positioning, and fundraising narratives reinforce one another.

Issues and Crisis Management

• Owns and updates the institution's crisis communications infrastructure, including proactive issues-monitoring, evolution of the crisis communications plan, and management of the Crisis Management Committee.
• Leads proactive and reactive crisis management across the full range of scenarios a research university with a medical center may face — coordinating with legal counsel, compliance, risk management, and clinical leadership.
• Advises senior leaders in real time during high-stakes situations and conduct after-action reviews to strengthen institutional preparedness, keeping the CMCO connected throughout.

Enterprise Coordination and Team Leadership

• Builds, mentors, and manages a high-performing communications team, and establishes a coordinating structure (a communications council or equivalent) linking central communications with embedded communicators across schools, research institutes, and hospital/clinical departments.
• Leads through change management across a matrixed organization, building trust and buy-in with school, medical center, and health system leaders who have historically operated independently.
• Partners closely with Government Affairs, Advancement, and the marketing/brand functions, and directly with school deans and medical center leadership to keep messaging aligned across policy, philanthropic, academic, and institutional priorities. Owns reputation, thought leadership, and issues management.
• Manages the communications function's operating budget and set performance metrics for media coverage, message penetration, employee engagement, and issues and crisis response effectiveness.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed by people assigned to this classification. They are not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all job duties performed by the personnel so classified. Management reserves the right to revise or amend duties at any time.

Required Qualifications

Education:

Bachelor's degree

Certifications/Professional Licenses:

No specific certification/professional license is required for this position.

Work Experience:

Communications And/Or Marketing With Progressive Leadership Responsibility (15 Years)

Skills:

Crisis Communication, Reputation Management, Strategic Communication Planning

Driver's License:

A driver's license is not required for this position.

More About This Job

Required Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience leading communications within a large, complex, and decentralized organization — higher education, healthcare, or another mission-driven, multi-stakeholder environment.
• A track record of serving as a trusted advisor and spokesperson at the executive and board level, including guiding an organization through a significant reputational or operational issue or crisis.
• Experience building and leading high-performing teams and coordinating communications across independently operating units.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience within an academic medical center, health system, or research university, with working knowledge of clinical operations, physician relations, and biomedical research communications.
• Familiarity with academic and hospital reputational metrics (e.g., U.S. News & World Report, Doximity, NIH/NCI rankings) and how communications strategy supports them.
• A network of relationships with national health, science, and higher-education media.

Preferred Qualifications

Education:

No additional education unless stated elsewhere in the job posting.

Certifications/Professional Licenses:

No additional certification/professional licenses unless stated elsewhere in the job posting.

Work Experience:

No additional work experience unless stated elsewhere in the job posting.

Skills:

Biomedical Research, Clinical Operations, Clinical Risk Management, Executive Communications, Journalism, Legal Compliance, Media Relations, Metrics Management, Physician Relations

Grade

G00

Salary Range

Base pay is commensurate with experience.

The salary range reflects base salaries paid for positions in a given job grade across the University. Individual rates within the range will be determined by factors including one's qualifications and performance, equity with others in the department, market rates for positions within the same grade and department budget.

Questions

For frequently asked questions about the application process, please refer to our External Applicant FAQ.

Accommodation

If you are unable to use our online application system and would like an accommodation, please email [email protected] or call the dedicated accommodation inquiry number at 314-935-1149 and leave a voicemail with the nature of your request.

All qualified individuals must be able to perform the essential functions of the position satisfactorily and, if requested, reasonable accommodations will be made to enable employees with disabilities to perform the essential functions of their job, absent undue hardship.

Pre-Employment Screening

All external candidates receiving an offer for employment will be required to submit to pre-employment screening for this position. The screenings will include criminal background check and, as applicable for the position, other background checks, drug screen, an employment and education or licensure/certification verification, physical examination, certain vaccinations and/or governmental registry checks. All offers are contingent upon successful completion of required screening.

Benefits Statement

Personal

• Up to 22 days of vacation, 10 recognized holidays, and sick time.

• Competitive health insurance packages with priority appointments and lower copays/coinsurance.

• Take advantage of our free Metro transit U-Pass for eligible employees.

• WashU provides eligible employees with a defined contribution (403(b)) Retirement Savings Plan, which combines employee contributions and university contributions starting at 7%.

Wellness

• Wellness challenges, annual health screenings, mental health resources, mindfulness programs and courses, employee assistance program (EAP), financial resources, access to dietitians, and more!

Family

• We offer 4 weeks of caregiver leave to bond with your new child. Family care resources are also available for your continued childcare needs. Need adult care? We’ve got you covered.

• WashU covers the cost of tuition for you and your family, including dependent undergraduate-level college tuition up to 100% at WashU and 40% elsewhere after seven years with us.

For policies, detailed benefits, and eligibility, please visit: https://hr.wustl.edu/benefits/

EEO Statement

Washington University in St. Louis is committed to the principles and practices of equal employment opportunity. It is the University’s policy to provide equal opportunity and access to persons in all job titles without regard to race, ethnicity, color, national origin, citizenship (where prohibited by federal law), age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information.