Head of Corporate Media Relations: The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc
As a leader in business and personal insurance and other financial services products, The Hartford offers professionals many possibilities for career growth. And whether we're helping customers or building careers, we're experts at creating advantages that help people reach their goals. Overview of the Position The individual selected for this position will be responsible for leading a team that manages external communication activities related to The Hartford's corporate matters. This individual, along with his/her team, will provide strategic and tactical leadership related to promoting The Hartford's business and products through external communications, including public relations programs, media relations, social media and additional communication channels. Optimally this position will help drive an integrated, cross-functional approach to communications and public relations. This will entail a process that fuses industry knowledge, competitive awareness, creative thinking and company insights and ever-changing business line economics and product and service capabilities in the highly competitive markets in which we compete. This position reports to the Vice President of Media and Executive Communications and will lead a team of two direct reports. Specific responsibilities include: - Serve as a point of contact for external communications activities related to key corporate matters, ranging from organizational and staffing changes, product offerings, future growth plans, competitive positioning, public policy issues, legislative issues, and legal issues.
- Provide leadership in the development of external communications strategies and messaging for corporate issues; assisting on daily and long-term communications activities; developing messaging and communications strategies; managing production and operations-wide distribution of crisis communications.
- Effectively respond to reactive media inquiries, positioning The Hartford in a light which reflects fairness and balance on the part of news organizations and other outside interests; work with key internal stakeholders to devise a strategy for handling inquiries, researching issues, creating talking points and successfully delivering The Hartford's position.
- Develop proactive media relations plans on key corporate initiatives to gain positive media coverage for the company. Write news releases, develop talking points, aggressively pitch stories, handle interviews of company personnel and shepherd stories through to completion.
- Oversee financial communications, including quarterly earnings results announcements and internal initiatives to raise employee financial literacy.
- Draft critical executive-level communications and contributes on sensitive issues related to corporate issues that might arise at annual shareholder meetings, investor conferences, employee meetings, speeches, presentations, and other communications to external audiences; and ad hoc communications for other key executives.
- Help to represent the company with industry trade associations and member companies, including work with those associations and companies on industry-wide campaigns and other matters of common interest.
- Serve as a key media relations team member, providing leadership, mentoring and counseling to junior team members.
- Serve as a media relations representatives on cross-functional company-wide initiatives.
- Identify key industry trends with the goal of either creating opportunities for The Hartford to be positively featured, or preparing the company's reactive position.
- Work as a senior member of the company's media relations team to continue development a superior media relations practice for a Fortune 500 financial services company.
- Build and maintain a strong understanding of best practices in internal and external communications and applies this knowledge to daily activities.
- A key success measure for this role is to be able to act as a member of a team, highly integrated with other team members and able to work with and support each other whether the challenge is an internal or external program or unique to the role's primary area of support or across the company.
- Provide decision-making authority at times when the VP of Media and Executive Communications is absent.
Candidate Profile - Minimum Bachelor's degree (Communications, Journalism, or English preferred).
- A minimum of 10 years of related work experience in the fields of corporate communications, journalism or public relations agency experience. Prior experience in the area of insurance and financial services employee communications work is important in consideration of qualified applicants.
- Strong business acumen and a true interest in and curiosity about the workings of business.
- Strong people management and leadership capabilities
- Demonstrated ability to successfully develop and implement integrated communications plans that advance the business objectives of the organization.
- Demonstrated understanding of the news media and experience working with local, national and trade reporters on complicated matters.
- A grasp of complex issues that can potentially face a Fortune 500 company, including experience working with financial matters, legal issues and regulatory issues, as well as human resources matters.
- Comfort with overseeing large external events.
- Ability to manage outside consultants such as PR agencies, writers, project managers, etc.
- A team player with excellent planning and organizational skills; must have high energy level, with the ability to juggle multiple tasks and changing priorities.
- A confident, strategic thinker who can provide strategic communications counsel to senior management.
- Excellent written and verbal communications skills.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office (including Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook).
About The Hartford Celebrating nearly 200 years, The Hartford (NYSE: HIG) is an insurance-based financial services company that serves households, businesses and employees by helping to protect their assets and income from risks, and by managing wealth and retirement needs. A Fortune 500 company, The Hartford is recognized widely for its service expertise and as one of the world's most ethical companies. More information on the company and its financial performance is available at www.thehartford.com. What is the Compensation Opportunity? At The Hartford, our compensation philosophy is simple: we pay competitive base salaries as well as short and long-term incentives and we reward performance. In addition, you will be eligible to participate in our comprehensive benefits program including medical insurance, a 401(k) Plan, an Employee Stock Purchase Plan and more. The Hartford is An Equal Opportunity Employer
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