Senior Director, News and University Affairs

Location: hirify.global Vancouver Campus, Vancouver, BC, Canada; full-time onsite role with weekend, out-of-business-hours, and on-call duties for media issues, emergencies, and crises.

Salary: CAD 13,531.92–20,284.50 per month.

Company

The University of British Columbia is a public university focused on research, innovation, and learning.

What you will do

• Provide strategic communications counsel to the President, executive leadership, senior administrators, Deans, faculty, and Board members.
• Lead issues management, crisis communications, emergency response planning, and reputation protection strategies.
• Oversee faculty and institutional media relations, internal announcements, and executive media preparation.
• Act as the official university spokesperson and strengthen relationships with internal and external media and communicators.
• Align editorial strategies and messaging with university priorities in collaboration with Communications and Government Relations.
• Direct the News and University Affairs team, including recruitment, staff development, budget management, and performance measurement.

Requirements

• University degree in communications, marketing, journalism, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• More than 10 years of experience in a large and complex private or public sector organization, including six years at a strategic level.
• Proven experience working with media, government, and the general public, including strong issues management capabilities.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, sound judgment, and the ability to work independently under pressure.
• Experience managing media relations, critical issues, crisis situations, and broad stakeholder communications.
• Commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, openness, transparency, and respectful collaboration.

Culture & Benefits

• Work with senior university leadership and enterprise-wide Communications and Marketing professionals.
• Opportunity to shape internal relationships and strengthen communications across the university.
• Ongoing full-time staff position with non-union employment status.
• Role includes responsibility for innovation and continuous improvement within the communications team.