Director, Communications, Policy & Advocacy – Food Initiative

Position description

The Director, Communications & Advocacy is an integral member of the Food Initiative while working closely with the Communications, Policy & Advocacy (CPA) team in New York. They will report to the Senior Vice President, Food, and senior leaders on the Food team, with a secondary line of responsibility to the Senior Vice President/Chief, Communications, Policy, and Advocacy. They will also collaborate closely with the communications and policy teams on CPA. They will play a pivotal role in devising and implementing communications strategies, nurturing strategic partnerships and coalitions, educating policymakers, managing contracts and grants, and supporting priorities of the climate-food strategy that includes the global initiatives of School Meals, Regenerative Agriculture, Periodic Table of Food, and Food is Medicine. In successfully implementing this work, the Director will strategically position the Food team’s priorities in important conversations and convenings via traditional and social media, deepen partnerships, educate, and mobilize influential decision-makers, and provide policy, advocacy, and communications expertise to advance programmatic objectives.

The position involves research, ideation, project management, and coordination supporting the program areas, and their various projects, and developing the team’s influence agenda. The position requires curiosity, creativity, and versatility, with both a global and domestic (U.S.) perspective, and a passion for innovative thinking with the potential to advance human progress. The Director will help connect the dots, developing a communications narrative for this diverse portfolio and–with the broader communications team—telling that story in compelling ways traditionally and via social media.  They will also support the policy needs of the programs and initiatives by advising and supporting the strategies to influence target audiences and key stakeholders. The successful applicant should have the ability to synthesize information from diverse sources on a range of topics and be able to think creatively about how to use that content for both internal and external purposes. They should have extensive network connections in global development at the state and federal level in the United States, including an understanding of policymaking and experience in developing strategies to influence behavior and opinions. 

Pay Range: $171,296- $251,409. This represents the present low and high end of the Foundation’s pay range for this position. Actual pay will vary based on various factors, including but not limited to experience. 

Work Schedule: This role is on a hybrid work schedule, and required to be in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

Below is further background on the food team’s strategic priorities:

Food is Medicine (FIM): The Foundation has recently increased its commitment to its $100M ‘Big Bet’ on FIM, which aims to make FIM interventions accessible to 30M high-need patients in the U.S. Our goal is to make effective, equitable FIM programs a reimbursable medical benefit among public and private health insurers, and to integrate nutrition more deeply into healthcare. The FIM program has been active since 2019, and works closely with community-based organizations, advocates, researchers, federal and state agencies, healthcare providers, and private companies, to scale FIM and improve health, increase health equity, and mitigate rising healthcare costs.  

School Meals: After the UN Food Systems Summit of 2021 RF has supported the development of the School Meals Coalition which now has 90 member states. The goal of this big bet will be to develop a new organization that will support the work with these governments to expand school meals to 100m additional children, improve the quality of those meals, make them climate-positive, and ensure funding for these programs is sustainable. New funding mechanisms like debt swaps for school meals and ultra-processed food taxes will be needed to create the fiscal space for school meal expansion.

Regenerative Agriculture: We are currently working with over 20 funding partners to enable a movement to shift the world’s agriculture to regenerative practices that improve soil health, water quality, biodiversity, equity, and farmers’ well-being. This big bet will have three parts a) Enabling a common definition and framework for regenerative agriculture that creates accountability b) Innovative financing mechanism to support the transition from conventional to regenerative systems and c) furthering the research and evidence needed for context-specific regenerative practices.

The Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI): This “long bet” is building a global scientific ecosystem and providing tools, data, and training to catalog the complete biomolecular composition of the world’s food supply for the first time. The aim will be to create a global public good that will enable researchers to answer key questions such as the impact of regenerative agriculture on nutrient density, the medicinal qualities of food, and what new crop varieties offer the most potential for meeting the nutritional needs of a climate-changed future.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

Policy, Advocacy, and Influence

• Develop and implement an annual strategic influence plan, integrating policy, advocacy, and communications to advance strategic priorities in Food.
• Provide guidance and recommendations in programmatic approach, partner engagement, and communication priorities.
• Represent the Foundation in global and U.S. policy discussions and initiatives, using insights in food systems and geopolitics.
• Strengthen partnerships across public and private sectors to expand collaboration networks.

External Communications

• Work with the team to develop food storytelling, digital campaigns, media relations, government relations, and event planning.
• Oversee external communications for the Food team, including writing and editing key materials (press releases, blog posts, etc.).
• Manage media inquiries and collaborations with team leaders and Program Officers to promote grantees’ work.
• Create and curate resources for influence, such as data visualizations and knowledge products.
• Work with CPA for branding and messaging alignment in strategic initiatives.
• Leverage the Foundation’s brand and voice to advance initiative goals.

Project Management

• Recommend and advise on communications, advocacy grants, contracts, and consulting for the Food team.
• Manage communications budgets and lead project management for external events.

Education, Experience, and Skills

• Generally expected to have 10 years in strategic communications and policy-making
• Familiarity with Food Systems or Food Policy preferred
• Bachelor’s degree required
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, and extensive professional networks.
• Ability to balance immediate objectives with long-term positioning of the Food initiative.
• Ability to think creatively and develop innovative solutions and strategies.
• Experience in high-level stakeholder engagement and effective matrixed environment management, ability to navigate diverse sectors.
• Strong leadership, people management, and interpersonal skills for innovative work.
• Strong strategic, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
• Project, staff, and budget management experience, with high emotional intelligence.
• Ability to handle confidential information.
• Ability to balance and anticipate stakeholder needs.
• Strong talent development and people management skills.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally.

Qualifications and Competencies

• Balances Stakeholders: Anticipates and balances the needs of multiple stakeholders.
• Develops Talent: Develops people to meet both their career goals and the organization’s goals.
• Directs Work: Provides direction, delegating, and removing obstacles to get work done.
• Manages Complexity: Makes sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems.
• Values Differences: Recognizes the value of different perspectives and commits to inclusion, equity, and diversity in every aspect of work.

Application instructions

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