Vice President of Communications

About Elemental Excelerator

Elemental Excelerator is a nonprofit investor dedicated to scaling climate solutions for deep community impact. With a 14-year track record, we invest in companies pioneering essential solutions to pressing climate challenges, making neighborhoods and homes cleaner, healthier, and safer. We've invested in over 160 climate companies to date and successfully stewarded $180 million in government and philanthropic resources, leveraging our expertise to de-risk technologies and attract additional investment. Core to our work supporting innovation and entrepreneurs, and essential to our five-year strategy, is the central role of social equity and community impact in the implementation of climate technologies. 

We are a dedicated, passionate and diverse team that thrives in a fast-paced environment driven by a shared desire to maximize impact. At Elemental, where we are constantly pushing the edge of innovation, we find ourselves at an exciting inflection point - with more federal funding into climate solutions and philanthropic engagement than ever before, we will be steadily growing our team to meet the moment. Join us at Elemental Excelerator and be part of the next phase of our journey. 

About the role

To lead us through this next stage as we execute Elemental’s five-year strategy, we are looking for a big thinker and creative innovator with a proven track record of execution to join us as Vice President (VP) of Communications. Reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer (COO), the VP of Communications will be responsible for developing and executing comprehensive communications strategies that enhance Elemental’s visibility, reputation, and impact within the climate technology ecosystem. Key audiences include investors, startups, policymakers, community partners, and philanthropists and foundations. An ideal candidate for this role has the ability to develop, tailor, and cascade key messages that will resonate across each of the major audience groups described. This role will also involve managing a communications budget and a team of 4-5 communications, creative, and engagement professionals to start, as well as consultants including PR agencies, graphic designers, web design and development firms, and even production companies. 

This role requires a strategic and critical thinker with creative, out-of-the-box ideas, storytelling acumen, industry landscape knowledge, and strong public relations skills with solid press relationships across multiple platforms. We are looking for a leader with outstanding communications and collaboration skills. Experience navigating high-profile media relationships, launching big initiatives, and working with startups.

Key Responsibilities Include:         

Leading Elemental’s communications, media relations, and content strategy and managing a team with a focus on four primary areas:

• Developing an organization-wide communications strategy to bring recognition and clarity to Elemental’s brand: 
  • Developing and implementing an integrated communications strategy aligned with Elemental’s mission, goals, and key initiatives to ensure that key audiences understand what we do and know how to partner and work with us. 
  • Developing a strategy to tell a cohesive story about how all of the different parts of Elemental’s work – investing, portfolio support, community engagement, policy development and advocacy, and career development for the field — fit together to advance our mission. 
  • Overseeing all aspects of external and internal communications and creative strategy, including media relations, public relations, content creation, event and engagement strategy, and digital communications. 
  • Lead the creation of compelling narratives and messaging that effectively communicate Elemental’s impact, successes, and thought leadership in the climate technology sector.
  • Oversee and uphold the integrity of Elemental’s brand. This includes working with Managing Director, Creative to maintain and evolve Elemental’s brand assets consistent with organization-wide priorities; and build creative storytelling assets (graphics, video, photography, and more) that position Elemental as a leading brand in climate investment and technology deployment. 
• Building and mentoring a growing communications department & upskilling the entire team to be strong communicators: 
  • Manage and mentor a team of 4-5 communications professionals, fostering a collaborative and high-performing work environment.
  • Serve as a strategic advisor to senior leadership on communications-related opportunities and challenges.
  • Develop training opportunities to upskill the Elemental team to be effective spokespeople for Elemental’s mission and work. 
  • Build and oversee the execution of social media strategy as a distribution channel and amplification for owned and earned media content, as well as original social media content.
• Leading the communications strategy for new products, projects, events, and other key initiatives: 
  • Drive the development and execution of communications campaigns for new initiatives, reports, and tools launched by Elemental with the goal of ensuring new products reach key audiences effectively.
  • Develop clear, efficient processes to build communications and media strategy and scoping into the right stages of new initiatives at Elemental. 
• Building and leading an earned media and media relations strategy:
  • Manage a Media Director and work with that individual to build and maintain relationships with key media outlets, industry partners, and stakeholders to amplify Elemental’s presence and influence.
  • Work with the Media Director to develop an owned media strategy including editorial calendars for Elemental’s blog, newsletter, and owned events, and supervising execution. 
  • Build PR strategy and empower the Media Director to lead PR planning and execution including press outreach, the building of narratives and writing and reviewing of all materials including press releases, press kits, and presentations. 
  • Media opportunities will include events, issues management, media exposure for portfolio companies, securing speaking engagements and preparing team members for them, as well as the positioning for press and to the industry that elevates the overall Elemental brand. 
  • This role will also work with the Media Director to oversee agencies and consultants. 

About You 

You could be a great addition to the team if you are a strategic comms thinker, natural collaborator, keen editor, and enjoy working on complex projects that involve many different teams and stakeholders within an organization. You are skilled at taking big, complex ideas and issues and distilling them into clear, concise messages that resonate with clearly defined key audiences. You are a supportive and a results driven manager/mentor who has an eye towards building scalable systems and processes to support a responsive, creative, and efficient communications team within a dynamic organization. You can adapt quickly and respond to exciting media and communications opportunities to advance the organization’s mission as they arise. You understand the interests of different stakeholders ranging from technology startups, to market-rate investors, to philanthropists, to community-based organizations. You are proactive and strategic and have worked with an organization through a period of significant growth. 

Qualifications (even if you don’t meet 100% of the qualifications, we still encourage you to apply!)          

Desired skills: 

• Around 15 years of progressively responsible experience in communications, public relations, or related fields, with at least 3-5 years in a leadership role.
• Strong leadership skills and ability to communicate with, navigate and lead direct reports through challenges effectively.
• Proven track record of developing and implementing successful communications strategies in a complex and fast-paced environment, preferably within the technology, sustainability, or investment sectors.
• A strategic problem solver with experience developing a communications strategy that aligns with an organization’s vision, values, and positioning; ability to generate fresh, outstanding storytelling and messaging ideas and drive their resonance.
• Clear and concise communicator – ability to prioritize, clarify and communicate ideas simply, succinctly and accurately with attention to detail. Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to distill complex information into clear and compelling messages.
• Strong media relations experience and established relationships with journalists and influencers in relevant sectors. Experience concepting and carrying out a PR strategy.
• Experience leading a marketing, social media, and content distribution strategy for a comms-led organization, including experience managing and mentoring a team of communications professionals. 
• Experience managing agencies, taking care of brand partners, investors, journalists and other media influencers.
• Versed in external channel communication management including experience with network influencer and community teams as well as social media.
• Exemplar judgment and demonstration of Elemental values – Kuleana (responsibility & privilege), humble spirit, growth mindset, and joyful work – and be willing to question actions inconsistent with those values (five-year strategy, page 6).

Standout skills: 

• Experience building and implementing marketing and communications strategies for a policy audience (in April 2021, Elemental launched a Policy Lab with four fellows)
• Experience building and implementing marketing and communications strategies for a donor and philanthropy audience
• Knowledge of investing in climate tech companies primarily Seed to Series C in the energy, agriculture, mobility, circular economy, nature-based solutions, and water
• Passion for environmental sustainability, climate technology, and creating positive social impact.

Location

We will consider candidates located near one of our headquarters: Honolulu, San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C. Elemental has a hybrid working model and if you are within a reasonable distance to one of our offices in New York, DC, Bay Area, or Honolulu, we are asking employees to come into the office at least one day a week to build community with the team. Currently, most people come in 1-2 times a week, but we encourage those who are interested to come in more often if they’d like. 

Other Application Details:

Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

We will accept and review applications on a rolling basis. Although all applications will be considered, we may be unable to respond to all inquiries. Please note that we do read cover letters, so we advise spending adequate time on them to share your relevant stories and experiences with us. We also ask that you refrain from using tools like Chat GPT and keep the cover letter to 1-2 pages long. We try to keep applications open for at least 2 weeks, but if we receive a high volume of applications early on, we may close the position.                                                           

Elemental is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. Candidates of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply, including but not limited to: Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC); members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities; people who have disabilities; veterans, and people from low-income backgrounds. 

Elemental is also committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in its services, activities, programs, and employment opportunities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and other applicable laws.