Head of Digital Impact External Communications

Why corporate affairs?

Corporate Functions help deliver our strategy and plans for growth. We shape and steer the direction of the business by managing our people, finances, shared services and buildings. We also oversee our legal, regulatory and compliance obligations too.

This is a new senior role that falls under BT’s newly designed Group Corporate Affairs function. Specifically, the role sits within the Group External Communications team, part of External Communications, and a critical relationship and interdependency for the role will be with the Digital Impact and Sustainability team. All of these teams are part of Group Corporate Affairs.

Why this job matters?

BT Group will be launching a new Digital Impact & Sustainability (DI&S) strategy. We will reach and equip 10 million people with improved digital skills to increase UK productivity and reduce the risk of communities being left behind as tech accelerates. We will do this by reaching parents, children, SMEs and our people with campaigns and initiatives to improve digital skills. This newly created role will be a core enabler of the successful implementation of this new strategy. It will also be critical in ensuring the DI&S strategy is well understood by BT’s key stakeholders and seen as a core component of BT Group’s strategy.

Your accountabilities

• The development of an engaging external communications strategy to promote BT’s DI&S strategy and initiatives will be the central focus for the role.
• Accountability for leading external media coverage on BT’s digital skills campaigns. Take the Be Tomorrow Campaign to top tier global media
• Develop strong media relationships among technology titles and followers, education and social followers and specialist CSR media and writers.
• Reporting into the Corporate External Communications Director (Richard Farnsworth) and sitting within the Corporate Affairs function, this role will partner closely with the DI&S team to externally promote and advocate the campaigns
• A critical relationship for this role will be with the Digital Impact & Sustainability Director (Andy Wales) and his team  to advise and execute communications strategies in support of their agenda
• Shift reputation and mindset of BT from a “telco utility” to a forward thinking and innovative technology company
• To ensure BT is positioned as an organisation upgrading the next wave of productivity and upgrading digital skills
• Represent BT in a powerful way at international conferences and events for example Slush conference, Web summit etc

Skills required for the job

BT’s work on DI&S is extensive and meaningful but generating external interest and media coverage for it is difficult because it is a crowded and competitive space. Creativity and the ability to craft a compelling story around BT’s DI&S strategy – and the specific initiatives within it – will be a critical skill for the role.

In addition:

• Strong relationship-building capability
• Detailed knowledge of media relations and senior stakeholders across consumer and trade channels, ideally within technology
• Excellent communication skills both written and verbal
• Comfortable working across multiple external and internal senior stakeholders:
• Technology media e.g journalists from FT, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Economist both internationally and domestically
• Influencers across social media platforms
• DI&S team
• Corporate Affairs team
• Strong relationships with the CFUs (BT’s customer facing business units: Consumer, Enterprise, Global Services, Technology)

Critical to the success of this new role will be the ability to collaborate with peers across all of BT’s external communications functions (consumer, B2B, policy and public affairs, brand, etc.) and CFUs. BT’s reputation is held in the eye of its multiple stakeholders which means the consistency of our external communications messaging is almost as important as the messaging itself. Seeking influence, alignment and positive ways of working across all external communications disciplines will be a key skill in this role.