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Communication Manager (P-4), Office of Innovation (Giga), Geneva, Switzerland, #128791 (Temporary Appointment 364 days)

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Job no: 572576

Contract type: Temporary Appointment

Duty Station: Geneva

Level: P-4

Location: Switzerland

Categories: Innovation

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, hope

Giga (giga.global) is a partnership between UNICEF (unicef.org) and the ITU (itu.int) working to connect every school in the world. The team (https://giga.global/about-us/) has experience and background in building technology products, finance and investment, design, and infrastructure. It’s a global team, with two “centers of gravity” (in Barcelona, Spain and Geneva, Switzerland) but with many team members located around the world.

Giga is broken into three main areas: Mapping, Finance, Procurement, supported by cross-cutting support services. The Country Engagement Team supports the initiation and implementation of all three areas of Giga’s support in countries. The Mapping team maps schools and their connectivity, creating a real-time display of access and need on Project Connect (https://projectconnect.unicef.org/map). The Finance team works to create the financing (grant, loan, and investment) for connectivity. The Procurement works closely with UNICEF Supply Division to support governments through public procurement processes for contracting sustainable, high quality and affordable school connectivity. There are also crosscutting teams that support on communications, partnerships, staff wellbeing, operations and finance.

We aim to have agility and flexibility in how we work, and to be driven by realtime data about what we’re doing. We also work within the political and global framework of the UN, which means that we can collaborate with policy makers and regulators, governments, civil society, and of course, most closely with our 135 country offices, in everything we do.

How can you make a difference?

The Communication Manager reports to the Senior Adviser Innovation. The Communication Manager is responsible for leading the development and execution of Giga's comprehensive communication strategy to increase global awareness and support for connecting every school to the internet. This role involves crafting innovative communication tactics, managing media relations, and coordinating with partners to promote Giga’s mission. By leveraging the latest digital technologies and platforms, the Communication Manager will enhance Giga's brand, engage stakeholders, and support fundraising activities, ensuring that all communication efforts align with UNICEF’s values and contribute to educational equity worldwide.

Communication strategy:

• Deliver a Giga digital-first communication strategy that aligns with its communication goals and objectives. This includes assessing Giga’s digital maturity and the opportunity to innovate and transform by leveraging audience data.
• Demonstrate innovation and adaptability, with capabilities of developing a compelling narrative on connectivity and education; its impact on emerging markets and the digital economy to drive Giga’s thought leadership opportunities.
• Effective management of Giga’s web platforms, defining high-level requirements, deployment and up to date maintenance aligned to strategy.
• Creating and implementing comprehensive communication strategies aligned with Giga’s goals and objectives.

Media Relations and Public Engagement:

• Lead Stakeholder mapping to ensure Giga has a well-defined audience and matching personas to strengthen its key message communication.
• Coordinate with substantive functions their annual communication plans to ensure overall organizational communications coordination, and consistency, including coherence in messaging and strategies.

Brand Management and Marketing:

• Lead efforts to develop Giga’s brand strategy, enhance Giga’s brand positioning and reputation by creating compelling narratives and messaging strategies.
• Drive Giga’s differentiation strategy development which includes in-depth market research to identify Giga’s unique selling points, core values and the reason to believe that would resonate with Giga’s multiple stakeholders in private and public sectors.
• Cultivate Giga’s holistic brand experience design, which encapsulates an audit across all Giga touchpoints, ensuring consistency, meaningful and impactful experience throughout Giga communication across various channels – online and offline.
• Foster a strong sense of brand ownership and advocacy among internal stakeholders, ensuring alignment with brand objectives and values across all departments and functions

Stakeholder Engagement and Partnerships:

• Showcase an understanding of technology and connectivity infrastructure while leveraging experience working with Telcos and ISPs to support the partnership team’s opportunities.
• Management of media relations and various internal and external stakeholders.
• In partnership with the team, identifying relevant events, such as industry conferences, trade shows, product launches, and community outreach initiatives, that offer opportunities for networking, thought leadership, and brand exposure.
• Support the partnerships team through the development of collaborative campaigns and initiatives that leverage the strength and resources from both parties.
• Nurture external relations with key stakeholders, proactively engaging with stakeholders through various channels, such as meetings, events, newsletters, and social media to keep them informed, address concerns and gather feedback.
• Amplify Giga’s voice and strategically monitor communications across key stakeholders and mitigate any potential risk and create opportunities for further collaborations.

Team Leadership and Management

• Develop a work plan for communication activities, monitor compliance and provide support and guidance to ensure objectives are met.
• Plan and monitor the use of communication budgetary resources. Approve and monitor the overall allocation and disbursement and liquidation of funds. Take appropriate actions to optimize use of funds.
• Identify, recruit and supervise staff, technical resources and consultants as necessary. Conduct and implement effective performance planning, monitoring, performance development programme as required.
• Ensure communication effectiveness, efficiency and delivery as well as a rigorous and transparent approach to planning, monitoring and evaluation.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have:

• Master’s degree in in Marketing, Communication, Journalism is required.
• A minimum of Eight (8) years of progressively responsible and relevant professional work experience in communication, print, broadcast, and/or new media, in the high-growth tech industry, Telcos, ISPs, Advertising Agencies, multi-disciplinary marketing and communication across FMCG, B2C and B2B preferred.
• Experience working in start-ups and scale-ups with capabilities of building processes and teams from scratch is highly desirable.
• Experience leading and managing teams with a proven track record for hiring/growing talent is desirable.
• Demonstrable experience in managing and implementing digital marketing tactics with a keen focus on paid media campaigns.
• Experience managing global communication for brands and implementing global strategies.
• Demonstrable experience in managing a brand lifecycle, including strategic brand architecture, and brand health checks.Experience organizing events at scale and a proven track record of building and engaging vibrant online communities
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others (8) Nurtures, leads and manages people

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Advertised: W. Europe Daylight Time

Deadline: W. Europe Daylight Time