The Organization

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, founded in 2008 by Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of the private equity firm The Blackstone Group, is dedicated to increasing public awareness of the nature and urgency of key fiscal challenges threatening America's future, and to accelerating action on them. As a nonpartisan foundation, they neither lobby nor represent special interest groups.

Tackling such key nationwide fiscal responsibility issues and fostering meaningful action require a broad reach, high impact public profile combined with expert positioning and communications strategies toward public policy arenas and the American public at large.  The Foundation has tremendous intellectual capital, abundant resources, and the demonstrated passion to successfully pursue its aims.  An integral contributor to the success of the Foundation will be the role of Director of Public Affairs.

The Position

Reporting to the COO and based in New York City, the Director of Public Affairs will be responsible for providing leadership in the development and execution of the Foundation's overall public relations and communications strategy.  With a primary focus on "campaign style communications", this role will establish positioning and build advocacy for the Foundation's messages, initiatives, and goals in pursuit of broad action and sensible solutions.  This essential responsibility might best be described as the "Campaign Manager for Awareness, Visibility, Education, and Action" regarding the issues of importance to the Foundation.  Working with Foundation officers and staff to integrate program-related activities (grants/events/contracts) into the overall public relations strategy, this role ensures promotion of the Foundation's causes and the further identification and understanding of activities and audiences that will contribute to and reinforce its' success.  It's also very important for this role to manage, either directly or through an outside media agency, a variety of current, relevant contacts in the broadly distributed media outlets (print, digital and television) primarily based in New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.   The role is responsible for managing and coordinating certain outside ‘contractor' relationships, most notably public relations, polling, and advertising firms on an ‘as-needed' basis. Working closely with other Directors and senior staff, this role will help develop innovative awareness and learning initiatives for a variety of deliverables ranging from engagement tools; to books, films, and white papers; to surveys and position papers.

A critical aspect of this role will be to work with grantees and alliance partners in support of grassroots efforts reflecting the Foundation's message and mission.  Also, while not an absolute requirement, it would be valuable for the person in this role to be an adept, experienced speech writer in support of the Officers in the Foundation.  Finally, on an internal basis, this role will need to constantly assimilate, update, and inform staff as to the ‘one voice' messages of the Foundation as these messages evolve and strengthen.

The Person

This is a high-performer who has worked extensively in multiple aspects of mass communications and targeted awareness/education and/or high-level political campaigns.   A sophisticated thinker who has experienced the ‘ways of Washington' and who understands the importance of smart, effective, PR/media/communications efforts to the Foundation's mission is required. An organized, effective communicator with excellent writing, editing and content generation skills who is naturally engaged with and passionate regarding the fundamental beliefs of the Foundation is needed.  This person must bring credibility, the personal characteristics of diplomacy, and the capability to work comfortably and effectively within a collaborative team setting.  He/She arrives with a natural bias to action, a powerful intellect, political awareness, a demonstrated courage of conviction around his/her beliefs, and an instinctive ‘nose' for what's topical and newsworthy.  He/she must be able to manage relationships effectively and align resources, both internally and externally, for maximum effect.  This person is able to remain nimble and open-minded as priorities shift and opportunities arise, yet is secure enough to consistently exercise his/her best professional judgment in all circumstances.

Experience

A media/communications professional who has demonstrated success in launching and executing highly visible, cost-effective, high impact public awareness and education campaigns around complex business and/or political issues is required.  Experience in dealing effectively and productively with broad-based media is necessary as is experience in tailoring messages to multiple target demos and audiences.  He/she should have at least ten years of relevant work experience at a senior level combined with a bachelor's degree or higher in public relations, communications, or a related field.  Importantly, this person must be comfortable and facile with new forms of media that are youth-centric and technology-enabled, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other forms of social networking and/or messaging approaches. 

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourages candidates of all backgrounds to apply for this position.  The Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit organization, serves diverse organizations and is committed to building high-performing teams that mirror the communities we serve.  Please register (free of charge) at www.bridgestar.org and apply online through this listing on the Bridgestar job board at

http://www.bridgestar.org/Jobs/PositionDetails.aspx?jobId=5517