The External Content Strategist is responsible for developing strategic content that advances Akima's business objectives, strengthens market positioning, and anticipates the evolving government contracting landscape. This role combines market intelligence, content strategy, and executive storytelling to ensure Akima is leading, not following, industry conversations.
Working closely with business leaders, subject matter experts, business development, and marketing, this individual identifies emerging trends, customer priorities, acquisition strategies, and competitive dynamics, translating those insights into compelling thought leadership, campaigns, executive messaging, and strategic content that supports growth.
Unlike traditional content roles, this position is responsible for determining what Akima should be saying, why it matters to the market, and how those messages should evolve as customer priorities change.
Responsibilities
- Strategic Content Planning:
- Develop and execute an enterprise content strategy aligned with Akima's business objectives, growth priorities, and marketing strategy.
- Build proactive content roadmaps that support business development priorities, executive visibility, recruiting, and brand awareness.
- Identify opportunities where strategic content can influence customer perception and strengthen competitive positioning.
- GovCon Market Intelligence:
- Continuously monitor the federal marketplace, customer priorities, acquisition trends, policy developments, competitive activity, and emerging technologies.
- Anticipate shifts in the GovCon landscape and identify opportunities to position Akima ahead of market conversations.
- Translate market intelligence into strategic recommendations, messaging themes, and thought leadership opportunities.
- Advise marketing and business leaders on emerging issues, customer challenges, and industry trends that should influence content development.
- Thought Leadership & Strategic Content Development:
- Develop executive thought leadership, bylined articles, blogs, white papers, case studies, customer stories, campaign messaging, website content, and other strategic communications.
- Lead Akima’s awards strategy and nomination process, identifying high-value opportunities and developing compelling submissions that elevate the company, its executives, and subject matter experts across the GovCon industry.
- Partner with executives and subject matter experts to extract insights and transform complex technical concepts into compelling content.
- Create messaging frameworks, value propositions, and narratives that differentiate Akima in the federal marketplace.
- Ensure all strategic content reinforces enterprise positioning while supporting individual business group priorities.
- Cross-Functional Leadership:
- Partner with Business Development, Capture, and Marketing to identify strategic content opportunities.
- Lead content planning sessions with internal stakeholders to align messaging with business priorities.
- Serve as a trusted advisor on messaging, positioning, and content strategy across the enterprise.
- Content Effectiveness:
- Measure content performance and recommend adjustments based on business outcomes, audience engagement, competitive intelligence, and market trends.
- Evaluate AI search visibility, digital engagement, and industry conversations to continuously refine Akima's content strategy.
- Recommend new formats, channels, and storytelling approaches that enhance Akima's visibility and influence.
Qualifications
- Demonstrated understanding of the federal contracting marketplace, including agency priorities, acquisition trends, procurement processes, competitive positioning, and the broader factors shaping the GovCon industry.
- 7+ years in content creation, journalism, marketing, or communications—preferably in a government contracting environment.
- Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Journalism, English, or a related field.
- Exceptional writing, editing, and storytelling skills.
- Ability to write creative copy for a range of topics and content types.
- Ability to adapt tone and style for diverse audiences and formats.
- Strong project management and organizational skills.
- Excellent writing and editing skills, with a keen eye for detail.
- Solid time-management and organizational skills.
- Must be proactive and able to work independently.
- Familiarity with content management systems, email marketing tools, and social media platforms.
- This Hybrid position requires that you live within commuting distance from Herndon, VA.
Benefits InformationRegular - The company offers a comprehensive benefits program, including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, 401(k) and a range of other voluntary benefits. Paid Time Off (PTO) is offered to regular full-time and part-time employees.
Pay Range$115,000 - $125,000
Job ID2026-25888
Work TypeHybrid
