Communications Manager

Waste Management (WM), a Fortune 250 company, is the leading provider of comprehensive waste and environmental services in North America. We are strongly committed to a foundation of operating excellence, professionalism and financial strength.  WM serves nearly 25 million customers in residential, commercial, industrial and municipal markets throughout North America through a network of collection operations, transfer stations, landfills, recycling facilities and waste-based energy production projects.

This communications position will contribute to the corporate external communications team by contributing to the corporate communications strategy to include contributing to the senior executive visibility plans, crisis communications plans and reputation management projects. 

The communications manager is responsible for creating and executing executive visibility plans to include coordinating thought leadership engagement opportunities for top leaders in the company. This role will also lead proactive pitch work and media engagement for senior leaders. This role will also coordinate with the Senior Director, External Communications to contribute to reputation management projects and crisis communications plans. 

Communications Responsibilities:

• Works across the team and across the company to create and coordinate the execution of senior leadership executive visibility communications plans.
• Contribute to the creation and maintenance of media facing products to include – talking points, messaging, speeches, backgrounders, briefing and pitch documents.
• Supports issues management and crisis communications by developing communications plans and statements in alignment with leadership. 
• Creates proactive media pitches, positioning key senior leaders with earned media engagements – executes interviews and manage follow-up and tracking of coverage.
• Coordinate with social media team on crisis response planning and response.
• As needed, assists with monitoring the WM Media E-mail Inbox. 
• Supports the broader external communications team through other communications work as assigned.

The requirements listed below are representative of the qualifications necessary to perform the job.

 A.  Education and Experience

Education: Bachelor’s Degree (accredited), or equivalent experience in Communication, Journalism or Public Relations.

Experience: 

• Required:  5-7 years of overall communications or media relations experience working for an agency or in an in-house Corporate Communications role at a Fortune 500 company.
• Preferred: 2-4 years of experience with presenting communications plans to senior leaders
• Preferred: 2-4 crisis communications planning and/or reputation management hands-on experience 

B. Other Knowledge Skills or Abilities

• Strong written and oral communication skills. 
• Demonstrated ability to work as part of a team, but also be a self-starter with the ability to work independently and with minimal supervision. 
• Ability to prioritize requests and leverage communications resources in a matrixed environment for business requests.
• Ability to craft impactful storytelling messages. 
• Highly organized and able to prioritize under pressure. 
• Comfortable with role that interfaces with senior leadership 

C. Certificates, Licenses, Registrations or Other Requirements

None required.

D. Travel Requirements 

Position may require up to 10% travel. 

The highest level of supervisory skills required in this job is the management of managerial employees.  This includes:

Listed below are key points regarding environmental demands and work environment of the job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.

Benefits
At WM, each eligible employee receives a competitive total compensation package including Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance and Short Term Disability.  As well as a Stock Purchase Plan, Company match on 401K, and more!  Our employees also receive Paid Vacation, Holidays, and Personal Days.  Please note that benefits may vary by site.

If this sounds like the opportunity that you have been looking for, please click “Apply.”