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Director, PR and Communications
Yum! Brands
Plano, TX, United States
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Job Description
Reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer, we are looking for a full-time Director of Public Relations based at Pizza Hut headquarters in Plano, TX. In this role, you will be responsible for the direction of all national public relations and media relations strategies for Pizza Hut with the aim of amplifying the broader marketing, brand and CSR messages. You must be a PR and media relations pro, who also happens to be a collaborative team player that can work in a fast-paced environment across many teams. You are an ace writer and are comfortable generating written content across channels (press releases, pitches, internal communications, talking points, etc). We are looking for an effective and creative communicator who has the ability to create and tell interesting stories for our brand.
Responsibilities
As a member of the Marketing Leadership team, you’ll work closely with your counterparts on the brand and communications, calendar planning, media and social marketing teams to help maintain and advance the company’s position across consumer media. You’ll also work closely with the Yum! Corporate Communications team and other partners across the company to help advance the storytelling they do to amplify the broader Yum! Brands portfolio. You will be a key resource for the Pizza Hut franchisee community for local media opportunities and crisis communications. The Director will form strong professional relationships with members of the media and influential professionals to generate positive, wide-reaching media coverage for Pizza Hut. Other essential functions include:
• Collaborate with Marketing cross-functional teams including Brand Management, Calendar Planning, Creative Development, Social Engagement, Paid Media, Partnerships and other teams for successful and timely launch of new brand messages, products and services
• Continuously identify new campaigns, programs and initiatives to drive the brand vision and amplify the national messages. Measure ROI and impressions across initiatives in order to gauge success and inform future initiatives.
• Work closely with Pizza Hut’s Communications & Engagement team to ensure external brand messaging and tone is brought to life through internal communication and touch points.
• Cultivate and maintain relationships with key national consumer media and influential professionals to maximize brand presence on various channels (e.g. TV, Digital and Social Media). Lead and manage the day to day handling of media inquiries.
• Take active lead in developing a robust PR / Comms strategy to leverage key partnerships, innovations and messaging for the Pizza Hut brand.
• Lead preparation of company spokespeople for media engagements. Prepare key talking points and mock Q&A to ensure consistency of messages via media interviews.
• Provide leadership for a high performing external PR team based at the agency to drive the execution of strategic media relations plans to achieve maximize positive exposure for our products
• Work with multiple stakeholders across the organization to support key Company objectives while ensuring consistency across the company’s brand & voice.
• Manage sensitive issues to maintain company’s good reputation. Work closely with Pizza Hut legal team, Food Quality team, HR and Franchisees as needed to navigate crisis communications in a highly responsive and collaborative manner.
Company Summary
Pizza Hut, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM), serves and delivers more pizzas than any other pizza company in the world. With easy order options including the Pizza Hut app, mobile site, Facebook and Twitter messenger and Amazon devices, Pizza Hut is committed to providing an easy pizza experience – from order to delivery.
Founded in 1958, Pizza Hut has become the most-recognized pizza restaurant in the world, operating more than 16,400 restaurants in more than 100 countries.
Pizza Hut is also the proprietor of The Literacy Project, an initiative designed to enable access, empower teachers and inspire a lifelong love of reading. The program is rooted in the foundation set by the Pizza Hut BOOK IT! Program, which is the longest-running corporate supported literacy program, impacting more than 14 million students each year.
Minimum Requirements
Desired Skills and Experience
• Minimum of 10 years of public/media relations experience or experience in a similar role
• Minimum of 5 years of leadership experience, preferably with some time spent client-side
• Exceptional verbal and written communication and presentation skills with confidence to serve as the company’s spokesperson when needed and media train C-Level executives
• Proven track record of planning and leading successful national PR campaigns in a highly competitive category
• Experience with partnership announcements and campaigns, especially sports properties and leagues
• Experience in crisis management and resolving issues through public communications and correspondence
• Excellent problem solver with strong analytical skills, impeccable business judgment and decision-making abilities
• Excellent relationship building and influencing skills. Builds strong formal and informal networks needed to achieve business goals. Ability to collaborate with cross-functional partners and teams.
• Demonstrated strong writing skills and thorough knowledge of Associated Press style guidelines
• Must be both strategic and detail-oriented and can work proactively and effectively with minimal supervision
• Ability to manage reporting and tracking of a large budget from multiple buckets of funding
• Strong media relationships are a must, experience in national consumer, broadcast, and digital media required. This position will also require knowledge of local media. Experience with QSR industry and/or sports industry media, highly preferred.
Personal Characteristics:
• Passionate and high energy
• Combines conceptual thinking with a creative and disruptive mindset
• Brings vision and ability to drive strategy, but also able to drive execution
• Entrepreneurial and nimble; able to change direction in a fluid and fast-paced environment
• ROI/results orientation with strong penchant for action and sense of urgency
• Self-starter, self-directed; takes ownership and initiative but also a relationship builder; able to create a dialog and partnership with organizational partners
• Inspirational leader; able to influence across the broader organization even without a direct team
• No ego invested but very confident; courage of his/her convictions/able to push back as necessary
• High level of executive presence; inspires confidence internally, externally and at the executive team level
• Lead with integrity; able to maintain confidentiality on select topics and proprietary materials for Pizza Hut where needed.
Education:
Qualified candidates possess a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism, Communications, Business or a related field; an advanced degree is highly desirable