ukactive is a not-for-profit health body with a long-standing and uncompromising vision to improve the health of the nation by getting more people, more active, more often.
ukactive achieves this by facilitating big impact partnerships, championing innovation, providing high quality services to our members, campaigning, providing research and sharing insights.
Our members range from long standing health and fitness chains such as Fitness First, Local Authority National Operators and Commercial Brands such as Asda.
We are seeking an experienced but hands on Public Affairs and Communications Professional to help drive awareness levels of our brand, generate significant policy and media impact and support us to achieve our strategic objectives as a business.
General Duties
The Public Affairs and Communications Director is responsible for supporting the strategic planning, development and implementation of integrated ukactive member/partner facing and external communication and marketing campaigns to support the objectives of ukactive.
Responsibilities include the guardianship & development of the ukactive brand, organisational and internal communications, issues and crisis management, Public Affairs communications and media relations.
ukactive’s Public Affairs & Communications Team (PA&CT) uses a multi-channel, multi-stakeholder approach to inform and shape the physical activity narrative, with the objective of strengthening the value in which ukactive is held by key members, partners, stakeholders and media influencers.
- Develops, implements and evaluates the comprehensive strategic communications and Public Affairs framework and concepts based on specific objectives and requirements of various ukactive teams;
- Builds strong alliances with other departments (in particular Membership Services) to foster productive collaborative partnerships which assist with the achievement of core objectives;
- Ensures that all interactions and communications are aligned with the established strategic positioning for organisation and contributes towards the continued elevation of the ukactive brand;
- Identifies and responds to issues and trends of strategic importance and ensures ukactive is in a place to capitalise on them;
- Supports the strategy of each Business Unit within the organisation;
- Serves as a member of the ukactive Executive Board thereby contributes to the overall strategic direction of the organisation.
Specific Tasks & Responsibilities
Drives the development and implementation of proactive high quality marketing & communication plans for the entire organisation and individual Business Units.
These include, but are not limited to:
- Promoting, protecting and enhancing the reputation of ukactive with all key stakeholders;
- Internal/organisational communications;
- Develop consumer PR strategies for key ukactive audiences relating to specific projects such as National Fitness Day;
- Media Relations;
- Running a proactive and reactive press office – define communications strategies and helping ukactive find its voice publicly;
- Implementation of proactive media relations strategies;
- Management of press (journalist enquiries, face to face media briefing events);
- Management of any PR or marketing agencies used to support aspects of the workplan;
- Track all media coverage for communications campaigns, evaluate ROI, targeting and reach, extract key learnings and apply to future campaigns;
- Overseeing the organisation’s digital communications strategy, its web presence and utilisation of social media platforms to achieve business goals of the various Business Units, working closely with the marketing resource within the Core Operations Department to achieve membership facing objectives;
- Work with the marketing resource within the Core Operations Department to inform and support the production of all marketing and communications collateral across the organisation, supporting a wide range of activities from the promotion of ukactive member events through to publications targetted at parliamentarians and stakeholders;
- Identification and leverage of internal communications channels to strengthen the organisation both within the membership base and internally within the staff team;
- Change communications to secure understanding and support from the organisation;
- Leadership communications, including the planning of all staff briefing events;
- Oversight of the Communications team and the award winning Public Affairs and Policy team;
- Management of senior relationships with third parties like local authorities, brands, charities and key government agencies such as Sport England, the Big Lottery Fund, the Skills Funding Agency, Public Health England and other such bodies to create business opportunities and genuine partnerships;
- Programmes to shape the environment in collaboration with members of the public affairs team (e.g. set up of Expert Groups, utilising specialist opinion leaders to inform and shape the environment);
- The execution of marketing support for various ukactive projects and initiatives;
- Issues & Crisis Management;
- Strategic consulting for leadership of the organisation;
- Ensure alignment of integrated communications to support business priorities of each Business Unit.
Person Specification
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
Core Competencies:
- A proven Communications and Public Affairs track record and background;
- Background/knowledge in health-related public relations tactics. Proven track record in health or physical activity related communications;
- Background/experience in organisational/internal communications, including leadership communications, employee engagement communication initatitves and change management;
- Experienced in issues management;
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; highly perceptive in ‘sensing the environment.' Quick to detect issues, threats and opportunities and act on them;
- Knowledge and understanding of the physical activity sector, its culture and external influences;
- Educated to Degree level in communications/public affairs or related discipline. Professional membership in Communications/Public Relations (e.g. CIPR) desirable but not essential.
Teamwork and Leadership:
- Comfortable taking the lead in developing PR campaign strategy and delivery;
- Hands on; you will have a sizeable team but you will be limited in the resources available to utilise external agencies or hire extensively experienced direct reports. You will have to be comfortable being hands on as well as being strategic;
- Comfortable and confident in acting as company spokesperson with media and key influencers, if required;
- Team player; proven project-management skills and ability to work assertively but diplomatically with management at all levels. Ability to budget strategically and operate prudently;
- Exceptional knowledge of media landscape and behaviours;
- Sound decision-making ability under stress;
- Ability to communicate complex, nuanced detail with engaging brevity;
- Has the interpersonal skills needed to operate effectively in a multifaceted organisation with thousands of members, stakeholders and partners;
- Pro active positive attitude;
- Has the negotiation skills needed to solicit buy-in and build partnerships/consensus;
- Strong people management skills;
- Has the leadership/management abilities and skills needed to provide active direction to team members and contracted agencies;
- Adept at identifying digital technology trends and quickly assessing how/whether to engage for the benefit of ukactive;
- Extensive PR experience either in-house or agency;
- Excellent media relations and proven track record of effective PR strategies and successful campaigns in terms of objectives and ROI;
- Results oriented;
- Excellent writing and presentation skills;
- Analytical thought process driven by logic;
- Creative flair.