Community Affairs Manager

Location: Remote - Illinois; approximately 30% travel to hirify.global sites and surrounding communities, primarily in the Chicagoland area, Springfield, IL, Columbus, OH, and Raleigh, NC; periodic travel to the Dallas headquarters. Geographic scope: Northern U.S. portfolio, supporting assigned markets outside Texas and Arizona.

Company

hirify.global develops and operates infrastructure campuses and works with communities, governments, and external partners across its markets.

What you will do

• Develop and execute community outreach and stakeholder engagement strategies from due diligence and market entry through development, construction, and operations.
• Build and maintain relationships with elected officials, municipal staff, economic development organizations, school districts, community groups, business leaders, and neighboring property owners.
• Support permitting, zoning, entitlement, tax incentive, and economic development efforts in partnership with development, legal, engineering, construction, and government affairs teams.
• Plan and facilitate public meetings, stakeholder briefings, open houses, and community engagement events, preparing executives and subject matter experts for participation.
• Monitor political, regulatory, economic, and community developments; identify, assess, escalate, and mitigate risks affecting approvals, projects, operations, or reputation.
• Coordinate community-facing messaging, communications materials, reporting, stakeholder records, and community investment initiatives.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Public Affairs, Communications, Government Relations, Political Science, Economic Development, Business, Public Administration, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 7+ years of experience in community affairs, public affairs, government relations, economic development, stakeholder engagement, external affairs, communications, or a related field.
• Experience independently leading stakeholder engagement for complex development, infrastructure, real estate, energy, industrial, or construction projects.
• Experience supporting projects through due diligence, market entry, permitting, entitlement, construction, and ongoing operations.
• Working knowledge of zoning, permitting, entitlement, economic development, tax incentives, or related governmental processes.
• Demonstrated success building trusted relationships with elected officials, municipal staff, community leaders, business stakeholders, and economic development organizations.
• Experience planning and facilitating public meetings, stakeholder briefings, community engagement events, or similar public-facing activities.
• Experience working across development, engineering, construction, legal, operations, communications, and executive leadership teams.
• Strong stakeholder engagement, community relations, risk management, public affairs, written, verbal, presentation, facilitation, judgment, and relationship-building skills; ability to manage multiple priorities, work independently, collaborate across diverse stakeholder groups, and travel up to 30%.

Nice to have

• Experience supporting external communications, media engagement, or public-facing communications efforts.
• Experience representing an organization before public bodies, community groups, or governmental entities.
• Experience supporting mission-critical infrastructure, data center, utility, energy, industrial, or large-scale real estate development projects.
• Media spokesperson experience.

Culture & Benefits

• Remote work based in Illinois with travel to assigned sites and surrounding communities.
• Cross-functional collaboration with Government Affairs and Public Policy, Land Planning & Strategy, Development, Marketing, Legal, Engineering, Construction, Operations, Community Investment, and external partners.
• Equal opportunity employment and reasonable accommodation support under the ADA and applicable state or local laws.