Description:
The Senior Communications Business Partner serves as a strategic advisor to senior executives, shaping communication and engagement approaches that support the operating model, enterprise direction and overall culture at Wawanesa. The role translates business priorities into integrated communications planning, enabling leaders to communicate with clarity, consistency and impact. The Senior Communications Business Partner balances deep understanding of one area of the business’ priorities with an enterprise lens, ensuring executive messaging, planning, and sequencing align with organizational narrative and employee insights.
Job Responsibilities
- Build trusted partnerships with executive leaders to understand business strategy, priorities, and operating model impacts, and translate these into clear communications and engagement approaches.
- Act as a strategic advisor by diagnosing communications, engagement, and visibility challenges, and providing clear, well reasoned communications recommendations.
- Enable executive leaders to communicate with clarity, confidence, and consistency by advising on messaging, timing, tone, and audience considerations, particularly in periods of change or transformation.
- Lead the development and ongoing quality oversight of line of business specific communications plans, ensuring alignment with enterprise priorities, CEO narrative, and the national communications calendar.
- Incorporate employee feedback, sentiment data, and engagement insights into line of business communication strategies and leader messaging.
- Manage competing priorities across a complex portfolio by making informed trade offs, sequencing work effectively, and balancing line of business needs with enterprise direction.
- Support leaders through organizational change by providing communications guidance that strengthens understanding, trust, and adoption.
- Provide strategic writing, editing, and distribution support for line of business-wide communications, ensuring content is clear, accurate, aligned with enterprise narrative, and delivered through appropriate channels.
- Support line of business wide events and town halls by advising on structure and flow, and contributing to agenda development, presentation content, and speaking notes to enable effective leader communication.
- Increase visibility of executives in creative ways.
- Partner closely with other Senior Communications Business Partners to compare timing and strategic communications approaches, and planning documents provided to executives.
- Build capability within the business by coaching leaders on communication practices.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Communications, Journalism, English, Marketing, Public Relations, or a related discipline, or equivalent experience.
- Minimum of 10 years’ progressive experience in corporate or employee communications, including senior advisory or business partner style roles supporting senior leaders.
- Proven ability to build trusted relationships and influence leaders through credibility, sound judgement, and business insight.
- Demonstrated experience translating business strategy and change into integrated communications approaches.
- Strong capability to diagnose complex communications and engagement issues and provide practical, enterprise aligned recommendations.
- Experience partnering across functions and organizational levels.
- Ability to manage ambiguity, competing priorities, and complex stakeholder environments with confidence.
- Strong analytical and critical thinking skills, including the use of employee insights and feedback to inform recommendations.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
- Executive presence with the ability to operate effectively with senior leaders in high visibility and evolving environments.