Job Description
The Durham District School Board (DDSB) is responsible for public education in the rural settings of Uxbridge, Brock and Scugog Townships and the urban settings of Ajax, Whitby, Pickering, and Oshawa. The DDSB employs 10,000 staff in a wide variety of roles and is one of the largest employers in Durham Region. With 136 elementary and secondary schools and learning centres, the DDSB accommodates more than 79,000 regular day students and thousands more who take advantage of a wide variety of continuing education and adult credit courses.
The DDSB recognizes Indigenous rights are distinct. In the exercise of those rights, Indigenous staff and students shall not be subjected to actions with the aim or effect of depriving these distinct rights.
The DDSB is committed to learning and working environments that centre human rights and equity and that are safe, welcoming, respectful, equitable, accessible, inclusive and free from discrimination, oppression, harassment and harm.
As the Senior Manager, Public Affairs, you will be responsible for Communications and Board Services, providing advice on the strategic vision and direction required to build and protect the reputation of the Durham District School Board. You will support senior leadership, provide effective trustee board governance and will be a key driver to achieve strategic alignment, operational flexibility, and high levels of engagement with internal and external stakeholders. You have outstanding communication skills, the ability to build and nurture relationships across all functions, and understand the intersection between communications, policy and advocacy.
In this role, you will lead and mentor staff by cultivating a collaborative and supportive work culture, fostering growth and maximizing team performance. You’ll also coach and provide advice to senior leaders and communications staff to allow them to be proactive, credible communicators for their own teams and the Board.
Leveraging your vast communications and leadership skills, you’ll lead the design and implementation of a multi-channel communication framework and public affairs strategy as you spearhead Communications/Public Relations and Board Services and departments, aligning their work to the Board’s strategic priorities and the senior team’s direction. In addition to overseeing a strategic crisis management plan and advising on public engagement and consultation strategies, you’ll lead the communications team in optimizing the communications strategy, incorporating the development of social media, digital and video content into the overall communications toolkit.
This role will also see you providing a variety of key support services to the Board of Trustees and its various committees including overseeing the preparation of the agenda, ensuring the accuracy of the Board’s official record, and providing advice to the Chair of the Board, the Vice Chair and the Chairs of major committees on procedural issues. You’ll also prepare reports to the Board and its committees on governance issues and oversee all arrangements of the Board’s organizations meeting to ensure the elections of the various Chairs and committee members take place within the framework of Board by-laws.
Qualifications
Your profile as a qualified Senior Manager, Public Affairs will include:
• Completion of a post-secondary program in a related discipline (e.g., public relations OR public policy OR governance [board of directors, board of trustees] OR strategic communications leadership.), or a combination of education, training and experience deemed to be equivalent.
• Experience and capacity to develop and lead teams in using strategic frameworks is required.
• Demonstrated expertise in effective team- and people-leadership. Candidates must possess a clear and demonstrable ability to inspire, motivate, and lead teams towards achieving organizational goals as well as a proven track record of cultivating a collaborative and supportive work culture, fostering growth, and maximizing team performance.
• Minimum of 3 years of related experience leading diverse communication functions, developing and implementing multi-stakeholder plans, and senior-level problem-solving
• Experience with agenda and minute preparation.
• Senior leadership skills and strategic communications expertise including public engagement, brand enhancement, and digital and media relations.
• Ability to provide senior technical and administrative leadership to a high-profile communication and public affairs department with multiple projects, stakeholders and competing demands.
• Strong data management and understanding of educational quality indicators to inform progression of work.
• Superior strategic thinking and facilitating skills to act in an integrator role to mitigate against and resolve impediments to project advancement.
• Highly developed oral/written/public speaking to develop, present, recommend, implement, and manage reports, projects and programs.
• Knowledge of budget development and management processes.
• Knowledge of public sector, and governance model for public education.
• Experience with vendor development to management development and delivery of externally provided products and services, and with monitoring service delivery and performance against contract provisions.
• Demonstrated capacity to secure accountability to Indigenous Rights, Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion.
• Capacity to understand and support the governance model to fulfil the role of parliamentarian.
Salary Range: $133,483 – $156,173 per annum