Senior Director, Customer Communications

Senior Director, Customer Communications

Senior Director, Customer Communications

Equinix is the world’s digital infrastructure company, operating 240+ data centers across the globe and providing interconnections to all the key clouds and networks. Businesses need one place to simplify and bring together fragmented, complex infrastructure that spans private and public cloud environments. Our global platform allows customers to place infrastructure wherever they need it and connect it to everything they need to succeed.

We are a fast-growing global company with 79 consecutive quarters of growth. Through our innovative portfolio of high-performance products and services, we have created the largest, most active global ecosystem of 10,000+ companies, including 2000+ networks and 3000 cloud and IT service providers in over 31 countries spanning six continents. 

A career at Equinix means you will collaborate on work that impacts the world and be surrounded by endless opportunities to learn new skills and grow in varied directions. We embrace diversity in thought and contribution and are committed to providing an equitable work environment. that is foundational to our core values as a company and is vital to our success.

Summary:

Functional leader responsible for driving integrated customer communications, ensuring effective messaging that minimizes customer concerns, protects our brand and ensures our customer-facing teams can effectively speak with and support customers.  Responsible for setting strategy, building a team to create and execute, interfacing across Equinix on needs and requirements. Executes nuanced and tailored communications using customer personas and our distribution systems. 

Responsibilities:

Lead Customer Communications strategy and team:

• Lead development of Customer Communications strategy considering customer lifecycle and understanding how our customers experience Equinix
• Create a vision of future possibilities and channels that align with Equinix growth and offerings
• Develop an investment strategy & business case to reach desired maturity levels at 1-, 3- and 5-year intervals, including technology, tools and process investments
• Build a team of communicators who interface across the organization to strategize, prepare and execute a wide-range of communication types

Achieve cross-functional alignment and execution:

• Establish methods and standards to guide timely customer communications, ensuring execution of issue-specific, enterprise and crisis messaging
• Partner with communications teams to align strategy and language, working closely with Corporate Communications and functional enablement teams
• Regularly advise and educate on Customer Communications strategy, readiness to communicate, prioritization, and channels to achieve business outcomes 

Execute successful and effective communications

• Deliver recurring and ad-hoc high stakes and high impact communications
• Guide, edit and write tailored messaging, working through nuanced messaging for different external audiences, and educating internal audiences on the differences
• Establish effectiveness metrics and reporting standards to inform strategy and track impact
• Determine localization and translation strategy for standard, consistent customer communications

Maintain focus on longer-term needs or implications

• Drive proactive customer communications policy development for issues on the horizon
• Establish cross-functional partnerships so that internal stakeholders know to partner with this team
• Maintain awareness of external threats or changes of government and regulatory requirements that may require a response or change, in partnership with appropriate Equinix teams and experts
• Understand when / why to set global precedents (or not) 

Lead diverse teams

• Align cross-functional teams and stakeholders, enabling effective partnerships and hand-offs
• Shape a collaborative, transparent and entrepreneurial culture, in tandem with GCCX leadership team
• Motivate employees around shared vision and capability development

Knowledge and Experience

• 10+ years in Communications and Customer facing roles
• Experience with global communications, including 5+ years in executing high-volume external messaging
• Writing experience
• Experience with managing complex communications execution
• Experience leading a globally dispersed team
• Experience developing and implementing roadmaps to evolve an organization’s capabilities and operating model in alignment to the company’s growth strategy 

Skills and Attributes

• Executive presence with ability to influence executives and other senior-level leaders
• Knowledge of customer lifecycle management and communications distribution platforms
• Business acumen – how our business runs, types of things we communicate, how to inform trade-offs and make difficult decisions
• Financial acumen around investment strategies and budgeting
• Adept at balancing intense short-term pressures with overall long-term goals 
• Versed at inspiring behavior change through motivating teams, planning initiatives, designating priorities and being decisive when faced with ambiguity
• Focus on execution and results – establishing high standards for performance, defining relevant metrics, setting goals and developing plans, following through with accountability for results