Head of Corporate Communications & PR, India
Apple's worldwide communications team informs the world about our innovative products and services, and the values that drive everything we do. Areas of work include Public Relations, Corporate Events, Employee Communications, and Buzz Marketing. The team includes professionals with backgrounds in public relations, journalism, social media, writing, and talent and celebrity marketing. We’re looking for trailblazing, collaborative professionals from a variety of creative fields. Inclusion is a shared responsibility, and we work together to foster a culture where everyone belongs and is inspired to do their best work. Come and do the best and most exciting work of your career at Apple!
We are seeking a Communications leader with experience in Corporate and Consumer PR to drive strategy, planning, and execution of our communications programs and initiatives for India. This is a hands-on media relations leadership role, working day-to-day with the team to engage with media and tune in to what is happening locally to ensure our messages are accurately delivered in the appropriate depth and scale, to the right audience at the right time.
The Lead is expected to work collaboratively with other critical internal functions - Product Marketing, Marcom, Sales, Retail, GA, Legal, Services and People to articulate and craft our narrative, lead launch and momentum planning, and drive alignments in ecosystem storytelling.
This role will partner closely with colleagues in our headquarters to align on messaging, corporate and product positioning, and global initiatives while also defining, planning and executing local initiatives to address region-specific insights.
You’ll be leading and inspiring a team of Corporate and Product PR Managers who will champion our products, software, services and our corporate identity to seek innovative ways to keep our core messages at the heart of the customer conversation.
- Strategically plan and execute public relations initiatives supporting hardware, software, services, values and retail in line with global and local priorities, insights and challenges.
- Develop deep relationships across Apple, incorporating broader priorities into the planning and delivery of communications initiatives. You’ll work collaboratively with other critical functions to articulate and craft our narrative, lead launch and momentum planning, plan and deliver executive visits, drive ecosystem storytelling, and thread our values story throughout.
- Use outstanding knowledge of the local traditional and social media landscape to broaden and deepen our connections with consumer, lifestyle, technology, business and trade outlets, as well as emerging media.
- Identify and capitalize on new opportunities to deliver quality coverage and earned media outcomes.
- Identify new and creative ways to reach influential media and content creators, develop/localize relevant content, and share Apple's story in creative ways.
- Support the broader business and leadership teams through crisis management, internal communications, executive profiling and speaking opportunities, external partner communications, and providing communications counsel to leaders where required.
- Stay on top of key coverage and ahead of the news agenda, keeping the wider local and worldwide teams up to date on what's going on in your markets.
- Manage and respond to day-to-day press inquiries and update media on the latest Apple news. Manage and handle distribution of PR materials and resources, provide context and recommendations on localization needs.
- Coordinate key press briefings, press tours, attendance at special events, compile coverage and report on results.
- Handle challenging PR situations with poise, knowing when and how to respond to media inquiries; diffuse rumours, and resolve conflicting messages. Proactively identify and raise potential public issues that may impact Apple.
- Define and deliver product seeding programs to support launches, momentum campaigns and content reviews. Identify new opportunities and develop experiences for media and creators to seamlessly interact with our products and services.
- Ability to travel within India and internationally.
- 15+ years’ experience in PR. This might include roles in PR agencies or corporate PR departments.
- Experience working for, or with a global organization in both consumer and/or corporate PR capacity, consumer technology and lifestyle markets are preferred.
- Proven ability to understand business challenges and formulate effective communications strategies that support the audience needs and business goals.
- Experience working across multiple markets, managing multi-cultural team.
- BS/BA or equivalent experience preferred.
- Experience in issues management and navigating complex regulatory environments.
- Build effective teams with diverse skills and perspectives, and inspires them to do the best job of their lives, while creating an inclusive and collaborative environment.
- Passion for consumer technology and values storytelling as well as having a deep understanding of the local media landscape and social media space.
- Excellent oral, written, and presentation skills in English.
- Ability to think creatively and strategically, to continually prioritize and multi-task in a dynamic, creative, energizing environment.
- Highly collaborative with extraordinary social, influencing and relationship-building skills.
- Proactively builds and maintains relationships with key media and creators, resulting in maximum opportunity for coverage.