What are the responsibilities and job description for the Head of Communications position at Akouos?
Our Mission: Healthy hearing available to all.
Akouos is building a leading gene therapy company focused on hearing disorders. We are a precision genetic medicine company focused on developing gene therapies with the potential to restore, improve, and preserve high-acuity physiologic hearing for individuals who live with disabling hearing loss worldwide.
Restoring, improving, and preserving high-acuity hearing is an area of high unmet need in medicine: 466 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss, and there are no FDA-approved pharmacologic therapies to address its underlying causes.
Akouos was founded in 2016 by leaders in the fields of neurotology, genetics, inner ear drug delivery, and AAV gene therapy. Listening is in our DNA. We believe the only way to achieve our ambitious goals is to engage as one team, listen to each other, and trust in ourselves and our science.
Job Summary:
The Head of Communications will be empowered to lead and shape communications strategy and execution at the corporate, investor, and program level in collaboration with bold, creative, pragmatic experts across the organization. The Akouos communication strategy supports the corporate goals and ensures integrated and consistent communication across all stakeholders including individuals and families living with disabling hearing loss, health care professionals, our Akouos team, the biotechnology community, and investors. This role will report to the Chief Financial Officer.
Job Responsibilities:
- Lead development and execution of an integrated Akouos communications strategy for internal and external stakeholders to achieve Akouos’s goals and ultimately its mission of making healthy hearing available to all
- Build a right-sized communications infrastructure, capabilities, and process that partners with matrixed functions including Advocacy, Medical Affairs, and Research to support efficient and effective development, review and approval, and execution of communication
- Develop and execute corporate communications strategy to increase awareness and understanding by key stakeholders on Akouos mission, values, strategy, and progress to build trust, define Akouos’s reputation within the community, and facilitate effective collaboration
- In partnership with Leadership Team, develop and execute investor engagement and communication strategy to educate investors on Akouos’s business, the strategy and value that is being created
- Serve Akouos team as a center of excellence for effective communication and the development and execution of communication initiatives. Ensure synchronization and consistency of communications across stakeholder types and communication channels
- Adapt strategy and plan through proactively monitoring communication competitive intelligence and translating intelligence into strategic insights and considerations
- In partnership with Program Lead, Program Manager, and Program Team, establish and drive a program-level communications strategy and plan. Establish mechanisms to ensure consistency of communication across platform for shared communication elements
- Be an active steward of Akouos’s culture and values
Job Qualifications:
- Exceptional communication skills with an ability to express complex and/or scientific information clearly and concisely with a diverse set of stakeholders and in a variety of settings
- Leadership capability, including an ability to earn the trust of, motivate and guide cross-functional teams to make decisions and execute a plan. Ability to lead without direct authority and to build alignment, manage change, and resolve conflicts with diplomacy
- Analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to identify and evaluate the critical issues of problems or opportunities; given background, experience, and judgment, able to understand potential causes and deliver potentials solutions
- Ability to drive execution, including the ability to define objectives, organize a working plan, seek subject matter expert advice, and delegate action when appropriate
- Adaptability paired with experience that enables individual to determine when to the stay the course versus adapt the plan
- Multi-faceted background with direct involvement across, or experience working with, multiple functional areas, including in roles where nimble and thoughtful decision-making was required
- At least 10 years of business execution experience, with at least at least 5 years of communications experience in the biotechnology and/or pharmaceutical industry
- Ability to travel both domestically and internationally, if required
Akouos is committed to equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination for all employees and qualified applicants without regard to a person's race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, or any characteristic protected under applicable law.