Head of Marketing and Communications

Aurora Innovation$180K — $220K *
Transportation
11 - 15 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 15+ years in leadership roles in marketing, communications, or public relations, preferably in tech or autonomous sectors.
  • Experience in building and scaling marketing teams during rapid organizational change.
  • Demonstrated success in B2B marketing with focus on account-based strategies to drive demand.
  • Proficiency in executive communications and managing crisis situations in scrutinized industries.
  • Analytical capabilities to measure and report on marketing ROI to senior stakeholders.
  • Experience collaborating closely with Government and Investor Relations for cohesive narratives.
  • Exceptional communication skills for translating complex concepts into engaging messages.

Responsibilities

  • Lead and mentor a cross-functional marketing and communications team to unify under a single brand vision.
  • Develop and implement strategic marketing and communications plans aligned with the company's mission.
  • Establish metrics to evaluate marketing and communications' impact on business goals.
  • Collaborate with multiple departments to create consistent messaging for various stakeholders.
  • Enhance brand equity and reputation in a safety-critical sector, advising executive leadership.
  • Drive internal communications strategy to cultivate a transparent and engaged company culture.
  • Ensure storytelling consistency across all marketing initiatives and creative outputs.

Benefits

  • Collaborative work culture focused on integrity and teamwork.
  • Hybrid work environment with in-office requirements for enhanced collaboration.
  • Commitment to safety integrated into all workplace practices.
  • Opportunities to work alongside highly talented professionals in the tech field.
Full Job Description
What we are looking for

We are searching for a Head of Marketing and Communications to lead our overarching brand and messaging strategy. In this critical leadership role, you will report to our President and oversee marketing, external communications, internal communications, and creative teams. Because the autonomous vehicle space requires thoughtful and precise messaging in moments of celebration and in moments of intense scrutiny, across multiple stakeholder groups. You will actively team with our Government Relations, Investor Relations, Business Development, and People teams to ensure our narrative remains coordinated, cohesive, and impactful - with policymakers, investors, partners, and the public, and just as importantly with our employees and the talent we seek to attract.

In this role, you will
  • Lead & Scale: Direct and mentor a multidisciplinary team covering marketing, external communications/PR, internal communications, and creative design, uniting them under one brand vision and one team - leading at every altitude, from executive strategy to hands-on execution
  • Drive Strategy: Develop and execute comprehensive marketing and communications strategies that align with Aurora's mission to deploy the Aurora Driver safely and broadly.
  • Measure What Matters: Define and report the metrics that demonstrate marketing and communications' impact to the business, including establishing what excellent looks like for communications, where impact is hardest to quantify.
  • Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Partner closely with Government Relations (GR), Investor Relations (IR), Business Development (BD), and the People organization in a highly coordinated fashion to craft unified messaging for policymakers, investors, partners, employees, and the public.
  • Protect & Grow the Brand: Drive brand equity across all key audiences - including commercial partners, policymakers, investors, the public, and prospective talent. Own brand reputation in a safety-critical industry, preparing Aurora for its highest-stakes moments and serving as a strategic advisor to the executive leadership team.
  • Engage Internally: Guide our internal communications strategy to foster a transparent, aligned, and highly engaged company culture during a period of rapid commercialization.
  • Elevate Creative Impact: Ensure cohesive storytelling across all marketing and communication pillars, partnering with creative leadership so campaigns and assets consistently reflect our unified brand.

Required Qualifications:
  • 15+ years of progression in leadership scope and experience in marketing, communications, or public relations, ideally within the technology, transportation, logistics, or autonomous systems sectors.
  • Proven organization builder and people leader with experience designing, scaling, and evolving marketing and communications teams through rapid commercial scaling and organizational change, while developing and retaining senior functional leaders as an engaged thought partner.
  • Demonstrated success marketing in enterprise B2B environments, including account-based strategies that build demand and pipeline with a defined set of high-value customers.
  • Experience in executive communications and crisis management - including personally leading an organization's communications through a real crisis in a safety-critical or highly scrutinized industry.
  • Analytical fluency, with a track record of measuring marketing and communications programs and articulating their ROI to executive and board-level stakeholders.
  • Demonstrated experience collaborating closely with Government Relations, and Investor Relations to build cohesive corporate narratives in a highly regulated industry.
  • Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, capable of distilling complex, highly technical concepts into accessible, impactful messaging for broad audiences.
  • Deep experience managing executive communications, crisis management, and large-scale media campaigns.

Desirable Qualifications
  • Previous experience navigating public markets, including supporting earnings calls, investor days, and financial communications.
  • Familiarity with the autonomous vehicle landscape, the commercial trucking/logistics industry, or the broader automotive ecosystem.
  • Existing, strong relationships with top-tier business, technology, and automotive media.


Working at Aurora

At Aurora, we bring together extraordinarily talented and experienced people united by the strength of our values. We operate with integrity, set outrageous goals, and build a culture where we win together - all without any jerks.

We believe in-person work increases collaboration, empathy and our ability to lead effectively. As a result, we operate in a hybrid work environment where Aurorans are in office at least 3 days per week.

Our Careers page provides insight into what it is like to work at Aurora, and you can find all the latest updates in our Newsroom.

Our commitment to safety

At the core of everything we do is our commitment to safety. Building best-in-class self-driving technology will take time, and we believe that each employee at Aurora has a role in contributing to safety, every step of the way. Aurora expects commitment to our safety policies from every employee, and seeks candidates who take an active responsibility, can contribute to building an atmosphere of trust, and invest in the organization's long-term success by prioritizing working safely, no matter what.

About Aurora Innovation

Aurora Innovation is a technology company that develops self-driving car technology. The company was founded in 2017 by a team of experts in the field of autonomous vehicles, including former executives from Google, Tesla, and Uber. Aurora's technology is designed to enable vehicles to operate safely and efficiently in a variety of driving conditions, and the company has partnerships with a number of major automakers, including Volkswagen and Hyundai. Aurora is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Learn more about Aurora Innovation
Size
600 employees
Market Cap
$1.3 billion
Industry
NASDAQ

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