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Sr. Director - Communications & Issues Management

Salary
Competitive
Employment
Full Time
Work Place
Part Remote
Real Estate Field
Location
chicago
 IL
Postal Code
60606
Country
United States

This job is no longer active.

Description


LivCor, a Blackstone portfolio company, is a real estate asset management business specializing in multi-family housing. Formed in 2013 and headquartered in Chicago, LivCor is currently responsible for a portfolio of over 400 Class A and B properties comprising more than 150,000 units in markets across the United States.

 

Our business is focused on making real estate more valuable. But for us, it’s more than that. It’s people first, community always. It’s a life-filled career, not just a career-filled life. It’s doing good work, with good humans, and making a difference. It’s excellence in all its forms. Ultimately, we create great places to work, live, and grow. We do that by focusing on leaving people – and places – better than we found them.

 

Whew! Still with us? Cool. Let’s talk about where you’d fit in:

 

The Senior Director of Communications & Issue Management role is a key member of the LivCor Communications team. 

  • We are looking for a strategic thinker and doer with a track record of supporting organizations in all aspects of communication and public affairs, with a particular focus on crisis & issues prevention and management
  • You will also lead and execute a range of executive, teammate, and community engagement communications.

The ideal candidate will: 

  • Have political or public affairs experience with an understanding that the public’s first call is to the media or local politicians when they feel they aren’t being heard or their issues aren’t be resolved. 
  • Navigate communications with multiple internal LivCor and Blackstone company (i.e., legal, operations, executive leadership), third party (i.e., local property managers), and external audiences (i.e., residents, elected officials, media, etc.) 
  • Balance competing perspectives and needs of stakeholders of all levels. 
  • Think big picture to foresee reputational risks and opportunities within the broader Blackstone ecosystem. 

Only read further if you are:

  • Kind
  • Humble
  • Honest
  • Relentless
  • Smart with Heart

You should be:

  • A team player with a can-do attitude and the ability to work across silos and projects, who can deliver effective communications strategies on deadline in a fast-paced environment.
  • A coach with the skills to effectively empower, engage and develop team members.
  • A critical thinker who enjoys challenging work to achieve strategic goals and understands the business implications of the projects they work on.
  • A process-oriented leader who understands that the best ideas still need to be executed by humans who need to not only believe, but need to understand why.
  • An executor who is passionately committed to excellence and will relentlessly pursue the team’s goals.
  • A culture champion who believes that organizational culture has a significant impact on business and people results and leads accordingly.
  • An owner who takes responsibility.
  • A strategist who believes everything should be done in an organized and efficient manner.
  • A passionate communicator who believes that helping others win is a noble cause and that proactive hands-on leadership is the only course of action.
  • Gumby. Things change.
  • Funny with a sense of humor, because being able to laugh when you’re under pressure is key. 

 

What you will do:

  • Help lead the day-to-day communications for LivCor, with a focus on reputational management of a range of issues, in collaboration with other subject matter experts (e.g., legal, technology, operations, other comms colleagues). 
    • This includes oversight of social media monitoring, drafting responses for not only media but also escalated customer service issues that may be shared publicly and talking points for frontline team members/spokespeople.
  • Be both a strategic leader and eager doer who will take on a central role in both preventing issues before they happen and managing them when they do. 
  • Own a program of crisis preparedness work, including playbooks containing approved plans and communications material.
  • Advise stakeholders on communications issues both big (law suits, environmental disasters, crime, etc.) and small (theft, building / operational disturbances, early lease termination, etc.) to minimize reputational risk.
  • Recognize and help navigate public affairs issues (e.g. local elected official or government department outreach) when they have a reputational component. 
  • Escalate issues internally, knowing how to effectively brief up and summarize an issue to senior leadership in simple concise language with clear recommendations and no gaps in logic.
  • Join a nimble team that exists to preserve, protect and defend the Constit – wait, sorry, wrong speech – build, maintain, and enhance our reputation on a local and national level. 
  • Manage PR agencies to support communications efforts as needed.
  • Guide appropriate messaging, style, and context for communications deliverables that support the overall communications strategy, adhere to the brand standards, and reflect the needs of our various internal and external audiences.
  • Support other Communications peers on projects/tasks as needed. As a wise person once said, “there’s no i(ssues) in team.”  

 

What you should have:

  • Minimum of Bachelor’s degree required, ideally in something like communications, political science, or law (discipline agnostic if you can demonstrate strong experience relevant to the role)
  • 10 – 15 years of strong communications and reputational management experience with a public affairs eye.
  • Proven and relevant experience in internal marketing, communications, and change management campaigns, preferably gained in a fast-paced environment and/or a professional services firm, with demonstrable results driving adoption among dispersed stakeholders.
    • Political and/or public affairs experience and a strong understanding of the political landscape of the sector and relevant geographies is strongly preferred.
  • A proven track record demonstrating how you view every situation through the lens of: how can we work in the background to prevent issues from surfacing and if they do, how do we eliminate repetition?
  • Experience communicating with constituents, residents and/or members of the public on specific issues, to prevent them from escalating publicly.
  • Substantial experience managing high-stakes reputational- related issues. 
    • Quite simply, this person must have a deep understanding of risk in all its individual and interrelated forms. This means you are experienced working and collaborating across disciplines including communications, legal, and operations. 
  • Expertise in both crisis management and as a strategic thinker that has owned a program of work that anticipated issues and built processes to be ready ahead of time. 
  • Outstanding writing skills and experience working with and writing for senior executives in communications is necessary, coupled with a strong understanding of the local, national media and political landscape. 
    • Ideally you have a broad skillset that includes media relations, social media expertise, and briefing/advising senior stakeholders. 
  • Strong leadership with outstanding teamwork skills, including the ability to work with business partners and mentor others as well as the confidence and skill to communicate your ideas clearly.
  • Ability to tell a clear and compelling story through PowerPoint or other visual aid programs.

What we offer:

We know that if we take care of our team everything else will fall into place. We aren’t perfect, but we will try to set very clear expectations, always let you know where you stand, and do everything in our power to help you get where you want to go.

 

Our culture and values matter to us. A lot. We’re definitely not serious but we take this stuff seriously, if you get what we mean. We want a place that is an ego-free zone. A place where good people do good things together. It shouldn’t be rocket science in workplaces, but for some reason it still is? We’re absolutely determined to be different, and we think we’re doing a pretty good job at it. We have a CEO who makes fun of himself, and who will encourage you to tell him when he is wrong. In fact, he needs people to – we all do. Supportive challenge is good, it’s how we get better. We like getting better. We also love diversity, of all kinds. We need people who look, sound, speak, love, and exist differently from one another. This isn’t at the end of this paragraph because it’s an afterthought. It’s SO important to us we want it to stand out.

 

Right. On to the technical stuff that we know matters to you. We offer competitive pay that is commensurate with the market and relevant experience, and a full slate of benefits that even includes things like paid parental leave.

 

If any of this sounds interesting, then maybe we are a fit. Life is too short to work with people you don’t like. So whatever you do, don’t make that mistake.

 

The LivCorian Values

  1. Be you. Be Real. Be Open. You do you. Together, we will do something amazing.
  2. Care, Always. We don’t want to let anyone down.
  3. Courageously Curious. We love to learn, even when it hurts.
  4. Help Others Win, Be A Good Neighbor. This is about ‘We, not Me.’
  5. Relentless Hustle, Heart & Humility. Work hard. Be Kind. Make Better.

LivCor is proud to be a US EPA ENERGY STAR® Partner

 

EEO Statement

Our company is proud to be an equal opportunity employerWe celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Our employment decisions are based on individual qualifications, job requirements and business needs without regard to race, color, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, age, religion, disability, citizenship status, national origin, pregnancy, veteran status and or any other legally protected characteristics. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations, if you need an accommodation to complete the application process, please email us. 

Job Function


Not specified

 

Job Sector


Not specified

 

Experience


10+ to 15 years


This job is no longer active.

Marketing / Communications chicago Full Time IL Sr. Director - Communications & Issues Management other