Associate Director, Communications Jobs

Job Title: Associate Director, Communications
Reporting to: Vice President, Marketing & Communications
Location: Durham, North Carolina or Remote
About Pairwise:
Pairwise is a mission-driven, food+tech company dedicated to building a healthier world through better fruits and vegetables. Pairwise was founded in 2017 by scientists at Harvard University, MIT, and Broad Institute who are eminent in the field of gene editing, as well as biotechnology industry pioneers. Our team is tuned in to consumer food trends, and we believe that consumers deserve more variety and innovation in their fresh food choices. We are primed to deliver that innovation through one of the best gene-editing platforms in food and agriculture. Pairwise has an exclusive 5-year research collaboration with Bayer to develop products in corn, soybean, wheat, canola, and cotton. Plus, Pairwise is developing new types of leafy greens, berries, and stone fruit, with the first product expected later in 2023. Pairwise is based in the start-up friendly Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina.
About This Role:
Our Marketing and Communications Team seeks a talented and experienced Associate Director, Communications to join our growing team as we commercialize our first consumer products and continue to build both our corporate brand and our overall thought leadership position.
The successful candidate will have the opportunity to be a part of the team that is launching the first CRISPR foods into the U.S. marketplace. As a skilled communications professional, the candidate will oversee both proactive and reactive external communications strategies and plans, working with both our PR firm and our Leadership Team. This position has the unique opportunity to implement high impact communications strategies for both the consumer brand, Conscious Foods as well as the Pairwise corporate brand.
The successful candidate will:

• Possess a strong eye for detail and ability to perform with accuracy under tight deadlines.
• Be a skilled and experienced communications professional with excellent written and verbal communications skills.
• Be a fast, accurate, and compelling writer and storyteller, with experience writing content for a range of content types, for a variety of stakeholder audiences (e.g. partners, investors, policymakers).
• Have tangible experience crafting narratives and external communications strategies and plans in a business setting.
• Thrive in the fast-paced, entrepreneurial culture of our mission-driven company.
• Be adept at leveraging monitoring tools to track communications progress, summarize trends, and anticipate threats and opportunities to the corporate and consumer brands.
• Have relationships with relevant journalists.
• Understand emerging digital media trends and have the ability to identify new digital communications opportunities for Pairwise.
• Have experience managing external partners, such as a PR firm and consultants.
• Have extensive experience with issues management, including implementing an issues management strategy.

Essential Functions:

• Develop content for leadership presentations and thought leadership assets.
• Develop and implement a corporate social media strategy, working closely with Marketing & Communications team.
• Write press releases that highlight advances and key milestones at Pairwise/Conscious Foods and work with agency partners for their timely and widespread distribution.
• Travel: Up to 15%, primarily domestic
• Develop and manage annual Communications budget.
• Be the liaison between Pairwise leadership, PR agency, and external media. Responsible for guiding Pairwise leadership through media inquiries from first request to completed content.
• Assist our policy and regulatory team with written and verbal comments on key policy issues.
• Manage relationships with PR agency partner and oversee PR for Pairwise and Conscious Foods brands, under guidance of VP, Marketing & Communications.
• Prepare Pairwise employees with up-to-date communications and messaging guidelines for public speaking, interviews, etc.
• Manage a weekly communications team meeting.
• Create compelling narratives with our communications agency, from external media to ownable brand content (white papers, policy positions, public comments, and opinion pieces).
• Evaluate and report out on external communications KPIs.
• Regularly update internal communications and messaging tools for company-wide use, working with VP, Marketing & Communications.

Required Education & Experience

• Experience developing high impact thought leadership presentations and/or keynote presentations using PowerPoint.
• Experience working in emerging and standard digital formats, including blogs, websites, social media, and video.
• A keen ability to track, analyze, report on communications progress and suggest strategic pivots based on learnings.
• Strong written communicator, with extensive experience writing content, business writing preferred.
• Knowledge of design software such as Canva or Adobe Creative Suite products a plus.
• Working knowledge of HubSpot CMS, Google Analytics, Social Media Dashboards, and eCRM platforms.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail with the ability to set clear priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in journalism, liberal arts, communications, business, or marketing. Master’s degree a plus.
• 8-10 years of experience in communications, media relations, public relations, or content, in a business organization, ideally working with both B2B and consumer brands.

Offerings

• Comprehensive Benefits Plan, including Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA/FSA, 401k, Life Insurance, Short-Term & Long-Term Disability, and more!
• Flexible PTO, in addition to company holidays
• A cutting-edge, driven community looking to lead the industry in innovation and nutrition.
• Casual work environment.
• Mission-driven organization focused on making a positive impact on health of people and planet.
• Opportunity to work remotely.

Physical Demands
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit and use hands to finger, handle or feel, and techniques that require fine motor skills and repetitive motions. The employee is occasionally required to stand and walk. The employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds. The employee is regularly required to talk or hear. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus.
EEO Statement:
We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.
Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Pairwise we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
No Recruiters please.