Director - Media Relations & Public Affairs

For over six decades, Chalhoub Group has been a partner and creator of luxury experiences in the Middle East. The Group, in its endeavour to excel as a hybrid retailer, has reinforced its distribution and marketing services with a portfolio of eight owned brands and over 300 international brands in the luxury, beauty, fashion, and art de vivre categories. More recently, the Group expanded its expertise into new categories of luxury watches, jewellery, and eyewear.

Every step at Chalhoub Group is taken with the customer at heart. Be it constantly reinventing itself or focusing on innovation to provide luxury experiences at over 750+ experiential retail stores, online and through mobile apps, each touch point leads to delighting the customer.

Today, Chalhoub Group stands for 14,000 skilled and talented professionals across seven countries, whose cohesive efforts have resulted in the Group being ranked third in the Middle East and first in Saudi Arabia as a Great Place to Work.

To keep the innovation journey going, the Group has set up The Greenhouse, which is not just an innovation hub, but also an incubator space and accelerator for start-ups and small businesses in the region and internationally. This is just one of the several initiatives taken by the Group to reinvent itself, catalysed by forward thinking and future-proofing. The Group has also been embedding sustainability at the core of its business strategy with a clear commitment towards people, partners and the planet, and by being a member of the United Nations Global Compact Community and signatory of the Women's Empowerment Principles.

What you'll be doing

As Head of Media Relations & Public Affairs, you will have the responsibility to drive the reputation and equity of Chalhoub Group externally with top tier regional and global media and connect the Group's leaders with crucial stakeholders, to positively impact the business. This person walks the talk as a servant leader, upholds the highest levels of our Group's purpose and values, and drives communication with excellence and passion.

You will be a passionate skilled communicator who finds a story to tell at every interaction and can build a solid strategy founded on qualitative and quantitative data to drive positive communication, news, and proactive relationship for the Group.

Key Accountabilities

• Contribute to develop, and execute successful corporate communications strategy, events and campaigns for the Middle East with a focus on KSA market.
• Contribute to and execute the Group-Wide stakeholder engagement strategy, influence country managers and regional team members to ensure updated contact, engagement, and achieving our measure of success.
• Strategically map out all regional and international key stakeholders and media to ensure our senior leaders are connected with the right people at the right time, with the relevant content.
• Proactively pitch to ensure our spokespeople are present at strategic global and regional conference and seize opportunities to present our group.
• Build strong relationships with A-list regional media and global relevant ones.
• Contribute to building a strategy for the Group President regional and global engagement.
• Lead the team to ensure a valuable thought leadership strategy for the Presidents and spokespeople.
• Build a solid database of our fact sheets, key messages, corporate narrative along with the content and digital team to be used externally and internally.
• Ensure media training to the Group's spokespeople and updating them regularly with the Group's messages and position statements.
• Work closely with content and social media team to ensure best in class communication across all channels (website, videos, podcasts, presentations, etc.) by supporting in their design, copywriting, and assisting until their final production and delivery.
• Lead the daily and monthly media reporting and analysis for the Group and the industry news.
• Work closely with the Human Resources team to develop and implement the Employer branding external communication.
• Lead a consistent content strategy over the year with a good balance of press releases, events, engagements, interviews and speaking opportunities.

What you’ll need to succeed

• Strong interpersonal skills, ability to build relationships, have a servicing mindset, with a results driven approach.
• Be able to influence with integrity, and be flexible to change.
• Proven track record of mapping and engaging with new audiences internationally and regionally, with a solid network of global and local media relations.
• Experience in overseeing thought leadership strategy for senior stakeholders and spokespeople.
• Experienced in training spokespeople on public speaking.
• French speaking would be a plus but not mandatory.
• Experience within the luxury retail industry would be a plus.

What we can offer you

With us, you will turn your aspirations into reality. We will help shape your journey through enriching experiences, learning and development opportunities and exposure to different assignments within your role or through internal mobility. Our Group offers diverse career paths for those who are extraordinary, every day.

We recognise the value that you bring, and we strive to provide a competitive benefits package which includes health care, child education contribution, remote and flexible working policies as well as exclusive employee discounts.