This role can be remote, hybrid or office-based. US location - flexible. The Opportunity We are seeking a visionary and strategically sharp Vice President of Corporate Communications. The ideal candidate is a builder who brings creative ambition to everything they do and someone who thoughtfully challenges the status quo and is energized by what's possible.
Reporting directly to the Chief Marketing Officer, you will have the mandate and runway to build a world-class communications function: defining our narrative, amplifying our public profile, and driving our share of voice across earned and organic channels.
What You'll Build & Lead A Modern, Multi-Disciplinary Communications Function. You will architect and lead a team built for today's communications landscape.
That means building capability across:
- Storytelling & Content Strategy: Grow our brand recognition through compelling stories about our impact, our vision for the future of AI in engineering, and the success of our users. Amplify the stories of our YII award winners: these are among our most powerful proof points and are currently underutilized. You will ensure Bentley has a systematic program to promote success stories across media, social, events, and owned channels, turning award winners into ambassadors and their projects into headlines.
- Media & Analyst Relations: Grow and expand these programs. Build a team of media and analyst professionals that develop strong relationships with top tier journalists, trade press, and industry analysts. Secure consistent, high-quality coverage and position Bentley as the expert voice in civil infrastructure and engineering technology.
- Influencer & Creator Strategy: Develop a modern approach to influencer engagement, from academic researchers and industry pioneers to LinkedIn creators, technical YouTubers, and niche community builders who matter to our audience. This requires orchestration of authentic engagement with the right people.
- Organic Social Media: Work across internal teams to build and execute an organic social strategy that expands connection and community, sparks conversation, and amplifies our narrative. LinkedIn is currently our primary stage, but we need to have plans to get to today and tomorrow's users through a presence people won't scroll past.
- Executive Speakers Bureau: Create a formal, proactive speakers bureau that puts our executives, users and subject matter experts on influential stages: keynotes, podcasts, panels, and conferences. Develop a speaker pipeline, content calendar, submission library and preparation program that makes our people the go-to voices in the industry.
- Awards & Industry Recognition: Create and scale an awards strategy targeting the recognitions that matter. Treat awards as a communications amplifier, not a back-office task. Central to this is our Year in Infrastructure program: ensure that it becomes an evergreen source of content and work with the customer marketing and events team to elevate our annual awards event as a flagship brand moment, maximizing its reach through media outreach, social campaigns, event presence, and winner spotlights that extend well beyond the announcement cycle.
- Executive & Corporate Communications: Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to executive leadership. Work across key teams including product, product marketing and investor relations to understand our corporate narrative and support executive communication development. Ensure that leaders are trained and enabled with key talking points for media and speaking engagements, and own communications strategy for significant corporate moments including product launches, partnerships, and M&A activity.
- Brand Voice & Messaging: Partner with the brand team to develop a consistent, distinctive voice that resonates with engineers, infrastructure professionals, and technical decision-makers. Push the brand beyond safe and generic: our voice should have a point of view.
Measure What Actually Matters Build a communications measurement framework tied to business outcomes, not outputs. The priority metric for success will be an increase in organic brand search.
The supporting metrics include:
- Tier-1 and trade media placement rate and quality
- Analyst perception scores and positioning movement
- Message pull-through rate in earned coverage
- Executive speaker placement volume and audience reach
- Award win rate and resulting earned media lift
- YII award program reach, media pickup, and submitted projects distribution
- Organic social engagement rate, follower quality, and growth
- Influencer program reach and engagement among target personas
- Impact on GEO/SEO search
- Share of voice vs. key competitors
You will report regularly to the CMO and executive team with insights, not just activity summaries. If a program isn't working, we want to know why and have a proposal for a better idea.
What You'll Bring - 20+ years of progressive experience in corporate communications, public relations, or public affairs, with a significant portion in the B2B technology/software sector.
- Proven experience building and leading high-performing communications teams.
- A track record of developing and executing successful, proactive media relations strategies that have measurably increased share of voice and secured top-tier media placements.
- Deep experience in crafting compelling corporate narratives and developing brand voice for a technical audience.
- Expertise in managing communications for complex corporate situations, including M&A.
- Strong understanding of the AI landscape and the ability to translate complex technical concepts into compelling stories.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, and a demonstrated ability to work effectively with executive leadership.
- A builder's mindset, with the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment and create structure where none exists.
