RENEWABLE ENERGY

Position: Senior Communications Lead, Renewables in Remote Communities
Organization: The Pembina Institute
Location: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton or Toronto

Position Overview

The Pembina Institute is seeking a strategic thinker with strong outreach and community engagement skills to join our communications team. This position requires strong interpersonal skills, positive energy, a high degree of organization, and the ability to thrive in a fast-moving environment. The successful candidate would work primarily with the Renewables in Remote Communities program team while also providing support for other Pembina communications initiatives.

The ideal candidate excels at big picture thinking while also being detail oriented. The senior communications lead is the point of contact for journalists and external partners, as well as a key instigator of mainstream, social and digital media efforts on priority issues. Reporting to a communications manager, and working closely with policy directors and analysts, the senior communications lead possesses strong project management skills, familiarity with emerging communications trends particularly in digital outreach/e-communications, and experience in digital publishing.

The ideal candidate has a strong interest in issues affecting Indigenous peoples in Canada, including northern and remote communities. This person should be available to work from one of the Pembina Institute’s offices (in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, or Toronto). Pembina’s workplace is a hybrid system that does not require employees to be in an office fulltime. In addition, consideration will be given to candidates who live in northern or remote communities, or who identify as Indigenous and require a flexible work location.

The communications lead for the Renewables in Remote Communities program will be passionate about Canadian energy and climate issues, and Indigenous reconciliation, have a good understanding of federal and provincial politics, and possess a deep interest in the Pembina Institute’s programs focusing on decarbonizing energy production.

The Pembina Institute

The Pembina Institute is a national, donor-supported, think tank that advocates for strong, effective policies to support Canada’s clean energy transition. Through research, consulting, and convening, we employ multi-faceted and highly collaborative approaches to reduce the environmental impacts of energy production and use.

Our people are passionate about sustainability and dedicated to enabling positive social change. Our organizational culture encourages creativity and collaboration, and we offer a flexible, fast-paced work environment that rewards honest character, personal initiative, and innovation. The successful candidate will join our dynamic team of nationally recognized professionals working with Canada’s decision-makers and key influencers to deliver clean energy solutions.

Roles and Responsibilities

In this role, the senior communications lead will be primarily focused on our Renewables in Remote Communities program. The communications lead will work with the program director to devise and implement an evolving communications plan that is underscored by the program's strategic objectives. This may include a mixture of outreach and engagement activities with other groups operating in the Indigenous energy policy space, as well as media monitoring and relations, producing content for social media, editing research reports and deploying strategies and tactics to leverage research in ways that influence policy decisions. In particular, the senior communications lead will devise ways to improve understanding of the full scope of the program’s policy and research work amongst its core audiences – Indigenous community stakeholders – as well as government and business decision-makers, policy influencers, journalists, and the general public.

This position requires collaboration with our strategic partnerships team on fundraising efforts, proposal development and cases for support. Additional areas of responsibility include communications support for other Institute programs as needed and providing strategic input into how the work of the Renewables in Remote Communities team correlates with the Pembina Institute’s broader objectives around Indigenous reconciliation.

Some travel and occasional work during evenings and weekends is required.

Skills and Qualifications

Candidates must clearly reflect the following skills and experience in their application:

• Relevant educational background and a minimum of seven years’ work experience in communications, media relations, marketing, or a related field
• A strong interest and background in issues related to Canada’s north, Indigenous communities, reconciliation, and climate and energy
• Understanding and respect for Indigenous culture and history and a broad understanding of Canada’s efforts and direction on Truth and Reconciliation
• Awareness of the social and political opportunities and challenges for Indigenous People in Canada
• Demonstrated experience developing, implementing, and evaluating communications strategy and/or plans
• Familiarity with provincial and federal policy and politics, particularly with respect to Canadian energy and environmental issues
• Familiarity with Canada’s national media landscape
• A superb command of the English language (reading, writing and speaking)
• Proven skills and experience in media relations, digital engagement, content creation and copy editing, social media, online publishing, and multimedia
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office programs
• Familiarity with basic HTML editing, blogging and online publishing
• Strong interpersonal skills, including the ability to exercise tact, discretion and sound judgment at all times

Other valuable qualifications

• Experience using social media to build community and/or advocacy campaigns
• Familiarity with media outlets serving Canada’s northern and remote communities
• Experience developing, editing, and producing multimedia products (audio/video podcasts, audio slideshows, YouTube videos, etc.).
• French language proficiency an asset (speaking and writing)
• Familiarity with Salesforce, Pardot or similar CRM software

The ideal candidate will be:

• An independent and confident self-starter
• A creative and strategic thinker
• A positive and collaborative team member
• Adept at tailoring communications approaches to suit the intended audience and platforms
• Able to juggle competing priorities and deadlines in a fast-paced environment
• Able to demonstrate a genuine understanding and/or curiosity regarding issues that Canada’s northern and remote communities, particularly in terms of energy security
• Ability and interest in gaining the knowledge and experience necessary to become a Pembina spokesperson

Compensation and Benefits

Compensation is competitive and based on the skills, experience and qualifications of the successful candidate.

Benefits include:

• extended health and dental coverage
• four weeks of holidays per year
• flexible work hours
• employer contributions to RRSP plan
• training and development opportunities

Further terms of employment will be discussed with candidates during the interview process.

To Apply

Email your cover letter and resume to careers@pembina.org ., careers@pembina.org Please ensure the following:

• Subject line includes Senior Communications Lead and your last name
• Cover letter (max. two pages) explains why you are interested in working with the Pembina Institute and how your skills and qualifications meet the criteria outlined for this position
• Resume outlines your relevant skills, education, and experience
• Cover letter and resume are saved as one PDF document using the naming convention lastnamefirstletter-application-position-year.pdf

example: LastNameInitialofFirstName-application- RiRCCommsLead- 2022.pdf

Application deadline: 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday, July 11, 2022.

The Pembina Institute is an equal opportunity employer, and we welcome applications from Indigenous People and other racially visible people, persons with disabilities and women in occupations or positions where they are under-represented. If you are a member of one of these equity seeking groups, you are encouraged to self-identify on your application form, covering letter or resume. We thank all applicants for their interest but only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

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