Director, Strategic Communications Network

GFNE Is being advised on this appointment by our executive search partner, Jago Channell

Introduction

The Global Fund for a New Economy (GFNE) seeks a Director, Strategic Communications Network to help support and develop lasting movement infrastructure for narrative change. This role is central to advancing GFNE’s mission by strengthening strategic communications capacity across national contexts, enabling aligned yet locally grounded narratives that shift public debate, policy discourse, and economic imagination in real time. 

Success in this role means leading the Communications team to build a highly effective and coordinated communications ecosystem that supports national impact, enables cross country learning, and positions the New Economy agenda at the heart of national and global conversations on issues from just transition to the political economy of AI. 

About the Global Fund for a New Economy (GFNE)

Founded in 2024, the Global Fund for a New Economy (GFNE) is dedicated to building an economic system that benefits all people, protects our planet, and strengthens democracy. GFNE partners with leaders, changemakers, and organizations to provide the strategic funding, partnerships, and infrastructure needed to drive this transformation.

As a remote first organization, GFNE is committed to building a global team rooted in diversity, equity, and inclusion. We value a wide range of perspectives and foster a collaborative workplace culture aligned with our mission. Our work spans partnerships with think tanks, community organizations, academic institutions, labor unions, and advocacy groups, building a global movement for a sustainable and democratic economy.

With initial support from the Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and the Omidyar Network, GFNE is prioritizing efforts in Brazil, India, the United States, South Africa, Kenya, Germany, the United Kingdom, Colombia, Mexico, and Indonesia. GFNE focuses on field building, ecosystem resourcing, partner support through grants and strategic assistance, and incubation of new organizations.

About the role

The Director, Strategic Communications Network will hold the overall strategy for GFNE’s strategic communications workstream, with a focus on our investments in national communications hubs and international coordination. The role blends strategic leadership with hands-on delivery to help our ecosystem most effectively engage in key strategic communications fights on topics as wide as Just Transition to Cost of Living and the political economy of AI. 

This role guides and participates in narrative decisions across hubs rather than acting as a central gatekeeper. The Director should help the network set high standards, deliver consistently and effectively for the movement, and to share learning internationally, while respecting national context, political realities, and diverse communication cultures. The Director, Strategic Communications Network will work closely with GFNE’s campaigns, policy, and program teams to identify narrative opportunities and act on them across the short, medium and long term. 

The role will also engage directly with funders, partners, and peers in the strategic communications field acting as a thought leader for the field and advocate for our current and future investments. The Global Communications Network is not being built from scratch. GFNE is already supporting ten active or emerging communications hubs in several countries, with established work underway in contexts such as Brazil, Germany and Kenya who collectively make over 3,000 TV and Radio bookings per year. Existing activity includes narrative testing and salience research, skills-building for communications practitioners, and experimentation with rapid, digital content. The role therefore builds on live work in dynamic political contexts, with the opportunity to shape direction, coherence, and learning across an already moving system rather than designing in abstraction.

What success looks like in the first two years

By the end of the first two years, success in this role would include:

• A clearly articulated strategic communications framework for GFNE’s communications grant making and field building, translated into practical guidance for national contexts with clear proof of impact against KPIs.
• A thriving network of at least twelve national communications hubs operating with an effective broadcast and digital operation, trust within the movement and a proven ability to move and impact on key narrative moments underpinned by an effective internal organisational structure and funding model 
• The development and socialisation across the network of shared practices for learning, coordination, and mutual support for hubs, allowing agility and nuance across messaging.
• A capable, successful, and happy core team in place, comprising the Global Head of Media, the Global Head of Narrative & Messaging, the Global Head of Digital, and Network Operations Manager, with clear roles and sustainable workloads.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Communications Program Leadership

• Lead and evolve the overall strategy for GFNE’s strategic communications workstream.
• Line-manage and develop the skills of a flexible global communications team, starting with approximately four staff.
• Translate GFNE’s New Economy agenda into narrative approaches that resonate across different political, cultural, and media contexts.
• Guide narrative priorities and strategic direction across national communications hubs, participating actively in key narrative decisions.
• Balance long term narrative work with short term communications needs, including rapid response and media moments.

Building and StrengtheningCommunications Hubs

• Design and manage the team to support, build the capacity of our national communications hubs partners and, where necessary, support the incubation of new hubs in target countries .
• Support hub leaders and staff to set an appropriate pace and scale for impact, aligned with national opportunity and capacity.
• Build on and improve shared practices, standards, and learning processes across hubs without flattening local specificity.

Network Infrastructure and Collective Learning

• Facilitate peer learning, shared experimentation, and adaptation across different country contexts.
• Enable collaboration across hubs to leverage collective scale in response to regional and global narrative opportunities.

Hands on Strategic Communications Delivery

• Deliver high level communications work directly where it adds value, including messaging development, ghostwriting, media engagement, and advisory support and providing steers on key moments of narrative challenge and opportunity.
• Deploy senior media relationships and communications judgment in high stakes moments.
• Train team members, partners, and network participants in strategic communications skills.

Cross Team Collaboration

• Work with campaigns, policy, and other GFNE teams to proactively identify narrative opportunities.
• Provide guidance to colleagues on translating complex ideas into clear and usable communications products.
• Act as a connective role across programs to ensure communications efforts support broader strategic goals.

Fundraising and Donor Engagement

• Raise money for the international communications network and national hubs.
• Support national hubs in their own fundraising efforts.
• Manage relationships with key donors and funders and oversee reporting related to communications work.

Partnerships and Field Engagement

• Manage relationships with key communications partners, including NEON - the New Economy Organisers’ Network and GSCC - the Global Strategic Communications Council
• Represent GFNE and the communications network at events, convenings, and field level forums as needed.
• Act as a visible leader in the strategic communications field focused on the New Economy.