Director of Strategic Communications and Public Information Officer (Transparency Posting)

Together, we innovate for a stronger Colorado

The work of employees at the Governor's Office of Information Technology (OIT) is challenging and diverse because the needs of agencies, customers and Coloradans constantly evolve. But our focus never changes: improve the lives of all Coloradans through innovation and collaboration. We're building one of the nation's leading government IT organizations by reimagining how we support agencies, building first-of-their-kind applications, and creating an inclusive, collaborative culture, together. Join us in the important work of providing equitable access to services.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: Please review your application to ensure completion. For the most equitable applicant experience, OIT’s hiring team considers only the contents of your application to review your qualifications. Please do not include any attachments (such as resume or cover letter) with your application as these items are not used by OIT’s hiring team.  

About the Role

The Governor's Office of Information Technology is in the middle of a significant transformation — moving from a project-based operating model to a product-based one, organized around cross-functional teams accountable for outcomes rather than handoffs. This is not a rebrand. It changes how OIT decides what to build, how it defines "done," and what agency partners can expect from us.

Director of Strategic Communications and Public Information Officer role helps to make that transformation legible and credible: to OIT staff living through it, to agency partners deciding whether to trust it, to oversight bodies who have questioned OIT's effectiveness, and to the technical talent we need to hire. The Director also leads OIT's media relations team — the front door for media and the steady hand when something goes wrong in public.

We're looking for someone who has run a communications function before and has real experience in strategic communication, crisis communications, and media relations. What matters most is whether you treat communications as a capability that makes everyone else's work land better — not a service desk taking orders, and not a gate every message has to clear.

Who You Are

You're a strategic partner. You get pulled into conversations early — not because you insist on it, but because leaders have learned your read on a situation improves the outcome. You know the difference between a moment that needs your judgment and one that just needs good craft.

You stay close to the work. You keep strong situational awareness across the organization — you're in demos and the meetings where teams share their work, and you hold a standing cadence with the executives you support and their seconds. You've built the connections to see around corners, so you can get ahead of what's coming instead of reacting to it.

You still write. You lead a team and you coach managers, but you're the one drafting for the CIO when it matters. When a principal edits your draft, you and your team learn from it — the correction shapes how you approach the next one, and the one after that.

You're an enabler. You want delivery pods and agency partners to feel like communications makes them stronger. You work in the open by default and hold little close. Success looks like more people across OIT communicating well, not like your team being the only ones allowed to.

You have real media relations chops. You've handled a hostile reporter, and managed a crisis in real time. This isn't theoretical.

You can operate in ambiguity. OIT is mid-transformation and this function is being reshaped to match. You're comfortable building while flying, and you don't need a settled org chart to start making good decisions.

You translate. You take something technical, political, or half-formed and turn it into language that lands with the person in front of you — whether that's a cabinet member, a delivery engineer, or a reporter on deadline.

You’re curious and question. You’re not afraid to ask hard questions, express concerns with people senior to you. 

Key Responsibilities:

Communications strategy and executive advisory

Set communications strategy across staff, agency partner, oversight, media, and public audiences. Serve as senior communications advisor to the CIO and executive team — on judgment, not just execution. Draft and edit executive messaging, testimony language, and talking points.

Media relations oversight

Leads PIOs. Oversee press inquiries, interview preparation, and releases. Guides crisis and issues communications, coordinating across OIT, partner agencies, and the Governor's Office during high-visibility incidents.

Enabling communications across OIT

Establish delegated-authority standards and playbooks so teams can communicate independently within a clear framework. Build reusable visual and template standards so any team can produce accurate, readable material without routing through this office. Own the standard for how significant changes get communicated — who communicates what, to whom, and when.

Transformation and change communications

Treat behavior change in two distinct audiences — staff living through the reset and agency partners deciding whether to trust it — as the function's core objective. The two run on separate timelines, carry different profiles of what each group stands to lose, and demand different trust dynamics. Partner with service lines on the governance, incentive, and behavioral conditions that determine whether change actually lands — not just how it's announced.

Communications grounded in the work

Keep the communications team close enough to delivery that they can write about it accurately and without a briefing. Ground each communicator in OIT's strategy and operating model as working source material, and connect them to the service lines whose work they translate. Understanding the work is the precondition for communicating it.

Reporting on how the transformation is going

Own how OIT reports on its leading indicators — internally and to agency partners. Publish the trend lines honestly, including when they're moving the wrong way, framed as learning rather than failure. Work with service lines on what the organization does in response, not only on how the result is communicated.

Agency and oversight relationships

Maintain trust with agency partners as a standing objective, including a running account of agency concerns shared with leadership. Own working-level relationships with oversight and legislative staff, and prepare executives for engagement with legislators.

Employer Brand

Develop an honest narrative about why skilled technologists choose public service, present in the channels where product managers, service designers, and engineers actually look.

Team leadership

Lead, develop, and coach a small team including managers. Evolve team roles and workflows to match how OIT now delivers, rather than how it was previously structured. Actively engage in improving leadership skills, attitudes, and knowledge, especially as related to equity, diversity and inclusion. Attend training, development and group training on topics of inclusive leadership.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

Knowledge:

• Media relations, issues management, and crisis protocol. The public-sector fundamentals: media relationships, spokesperson preparation, escalation protocol, and holding-statement discipline under time pressure.

• Statutory PIO obligations.  Multi-agency coordination during high-visibility incidents.

• Government accessibility and plain-language obligations. ADA/WCAG accessibility standards and plain-language requirements — or demonstrated ability to acquire Colorado-specific requirements quickly.

• Product-model and modern delivery fluency. Understands the shift from project-based to product-based delivery: pod structure, iterative delivery, outcome-over-output measurement, and the change in how "done" is defined. Must be able to explain the operating model to a non-technical audience — a skeptical agency partner, a legislative staffer.

• Change management as a discipline distinct from communications. Knows that governance structures, incentives, and behavioral patterns — not message quality — determine whether change lands or stalls. Can diagnose why a well-communicated change failed and name the mechanism that was missing.

• What technical talent looks for, and where they look for it. Knows the channels and professional communities where product managers, service designers, and engineers find work, and what those candidates weigh against a private-sector offer — compensation gap, mission, autonomy, quality of the work. Knows what an honest public-sector value proposition sounds like to someone holding a competing offer.

Skills:

• People leadership. Hires, coaches, and develops communicators, including managers. Delegates real ownership rather than reviewing everything.

• Translation across altitudes. Turns governance logic, technical progress, and policy context into language that lands separately for staff, agency partners, oversight bodies, and Coloradans. Translates the big picture into specific deliverables at the team and individual level.

• Designing delegated-authority frameworks. Writes the standards, playbooks, and rubrics that let teams communicate independently — defining what teams may do alone, what requires coordination, and what requires sign-off. Establishes new structures and operating rhythms while simultaneously servicing daily demand.

• Hands-on production at craft level. Personally drafts and edits under pressure: CIO testimony language, presentation decks, FAQs, the employer-brand narrative, executive correspondence. Writes as well as directs — production capacity is a working requirement.

• Communications measurement. Builds and maintains an audience map, conducts a current-state audit, and stands up a standing log of agency concerns. Tracks whether the message gap is closing and reports honestly, including when the picture is unflattering.

• Visual and information design standards. Produces reusable templates for project status, service health, delivery progress, and portfolio views — enabling any team to make accurate, readable visuals without routing through the comms team. An operational capability, explicitly not a branding exercise.

• Executive advisory and candor. Counsels the CIO and executive team on communications judgment — not just execution. Has the standing and the nerve to tell a senior leader their framing is wrong, their timing is bad, or the message won't land with the audience it's meant for, including when saying so is uncomfortable. Corrects sloppy framing in the room rather than cleaning it up afterward, and knows when a matter requires the CIO directly.

Abilities:

• Influences and holds standards without positional authority. Gets service-line executives — including people senior to this role — to adopt shared communications standards and escalation thresholds, with no line authority over them. Escalates when enforcement is required rather than absorbing the conflict or abandoning the standard.

• Exercises sound judgment with sensitive and high-stakes information. Operates credibly across agencies, the Governor's Office, media, and the public.

• Constructs and stewards the oversight narrative. Reads audit findings, hearing records, and agency complaints with enough literacy to understand what failed — and can explain how the new operating model fixes it, what evidence will prove it, and what OIT needs from the Legislature to make it work. Prepares executives for engagement with legislators while owning working-level relationships with oversight and legislative staff. Flags where the narrative is thin because the underlying delivery hasn't happened.

• Treats skepticism and uncomfortable feedback as signal. Surfaces bad news before being asked. Logs and reports agency doubt and internal confusion rather than smoothing it over or treating it as noise. When indicators trend the wrong way, communicates it as a learning moment and helps the organization work out what to do about it.

• Works collaboratively and iterates. Shares drafts early, invites feedback often, and improves through successive versions rather than holding for perfect. Treats a workable first version shown to the right people as more useful than a polished one shown too late.

• Leans across boundaries. Embeds in hiring communications, governance announcements, service-line planning, and delivery ceremonies. Proactively builds cross-team awareness rather than relying on being invited.

• Rationalizes communications processes and channels. Reviews existing approval workflows, channels, and recurring products against whether they still serve a purpose — and redesigns or retires them rather than layering new process on top. Leads change by developing and implementing more effective business processes for the function, not by adding controls to old ones. Can point to a specific process they simplified or a channel they sunset, and explain the reasoning.

• Builds and develops a team under sustained pressure. Hires, coaches, and retains communicators through an active organizational reset. Grounds every team member in OIT's strategy and operating model as working source material, and keeps each close enough to the delivery work to write about it accurately.

A wide salary range is posted for this position and any job offer is based upon a salary analysis to comply with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act. The salary analysis considers relevant experience, education, certifications, and state seniority as compared to others doing substantially similar work. While most salary offers are made within the posted range, occasionally an offer is made below or above the posted range based upon this salary analysis.

This is a skills-based job announcement. The required minimum qualifications and/or education (if substituting for the proven experience, knowledge, and skills), are as follows:

Minimum Qualifications:

• Minimum of seven (7) years of progressively responsible experience in strategic communications, public affairs, or public relations, including public-sector or highly regulated environment experience.

• At least of four (4) years directly managing communications staff, including managers or supervisors.

• Demonstrated experience as a primary media contact and/or Public Information Officer, including crisis or issues communications.

• Experience managing media-related public records request processes.

• Additional appropriate education will substitute for the required experience on a year-for-year basis, but cannot completely substitute for these qualifications. There is no substitution for any required management experience. 

• Training or Certification related to the work assigned to the position will be assigned credit towards substitution for experience and/or education, but cannot completely substitute for these qualifications. 

• If the minimum qualifications include a degree requirement, additional appropriate paid or unpaid experience will substitute for the required education on a year-for-year basis.

• Additional appropriate education will substitute for the required experience on a year-for-year basis, but cannot completely substitute for these qualifications. There is no substitution for any required management experience. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience leading communications through an organizational restructuring or major transformation.

• State or local government experience, ideally within a technology, IT, or shared-services agency.

• Experience building or evolving a communications team's structure to match a changing operating model, rather than inheriting a fixed one.

• Familiarity with product-first or agile delivery models and how they change internal and stakeholder communications needs.

• Experience advising a Governor's Office, legislative body, or equivalent senior political stakeholder.

Conditions of Employment:

OIT employees must comply with any screening procedures in place at state agency locations where they might perform work. 

A pre-employment background check will be conducted as part of the selection process. Post-employment background checks will be required for specific agencies as business needs dictate, which may include a polygraph exam, fingerprint-based criminal history search, reference checks, and a drug test.

This position may require travel within the specified geographic area, and to locations across the state as needed. 

This position may require on-call duties as needed by the position. 

If this posting indicates “remote from anywhere in CO” in the title, periodic reporting to the primary state work location designated for the position is required. All remote work must be performed in Colorado. 

While candidates from out of state will be considered for this role, the candidate selected for the position must relocate and reside in Colorado on the first day of their new position.  A reasonable timeframe for relocation will be established on an individual basis, while considering business needs, and determining a start date.

We know it's important to support each other, and that means having a healthy balance of work and personal time. Visit our benefits to learn more about some of our great offerings that allow us all to have fulfilling lives. 

Visit our How to Apply webpage to learn more about our application process and what to expect after you apply.

The State of Colorado strives to create a Colorado for All by building and maintaining workplaces that value and respect all Coloradans through a commitment to equal opportunity and hiring based on merit and fitness.  The State is resolute in non-discriminatory practices in everything we do, including hiring, employment, and advancement opportunities.

The Governor's Office of Information Technology is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, our agency will assist individuals who have a disability with any reasonable accommodation requests related to employment, including completing the application process, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, participating in the employee selection process, and/or to perform essential job functions where the requested accommodation does not impose an undue hardship. If you have a disability and require reasonable accommodation to ensure you have a positive experience applying or interviewing for this position, please direct your inquiries to our ADA Coordinator at [email protected] or call (303) 764-7900.

This posting may be used to fill multiple vacancies based upon business need. 

The Governor's Office of Information Technology does NOT offer sponsored Visas for employment purposes.