Head of Communications and Engagement

Association of Commonwealth Universities

Hours
35 hours per week

About the Organisation

Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and use your extensive experience in assessment quality, education sector insight, inclusive safety, and operational control to lead the ACU’s contribution to the successful delivery of an education mobility scheme, working with a range of UK-based partners.

The ACU offers a unique opportunity to make a real difference in the higher education sector. We are one of the largest, most diverse international university networks, bringing together over 440 universities in over 40 countries. We support Commonwealth Universities to collaborate and work together to build a more equitable and sustainable world.

The ACU Programmes, Business Development and International Mobility Team look after a portfolio of research capacity strengthening and education mobility programmes. These programmes are funded by a variety of internal and external funding sources and are often developed in collaboration with ACU member universities and other strategic partners.

About the role

Join the ACU as Head of Communications and Engagement and use your expertise and experience to help us in our mission to be the voice of Commonwealth universities, supporting them to collaborate and to advance their contribution to sustainable development. Working at the intersection of higher education and international development, the ACU offers a unique opportunity to make a real difference. We are one of the largest, most diverse international university networks, bringing together over 400 members in more than 40 countries, and our official role within the Commonwealth and United Nations affords an impactful platform for advocacy and strategic partnerships.

The Head of Communications and Engagement leads ACU's external voice and its member engagement function, ensuring that our member universities experience ACU as a present, credible and valuable partner. This role is the primary custodian of how ACU communicates with the world and how relationships with members, stakeholders and partners are built, maintained and deepened. You will develop and lead an integrated communications and engagement strategy, ensuring all activity is strategically aligned, well-coordinated and delivered with maximum impact.

Working closely with the Director, you will provide leadership in shaping the external affairs of the ACU, finding new and creative ways to communicate ACU's work and impact, strengthening our position with key audiences and platforming our advocacy messages within the sector and with key decision-makers, including at major multilateral forums. You will oversee marketing efforts to drive participation with our member opportunities and for our managed programmes and will be responsible for contract fulfilment for a range of external clients. You will also lead on internal communications in support of our people and culture agenda. 

Working with the Head of Membership and Events and Head of Policy and Research, you will be jointly responsible for the membership strategy, leading an international engagement team to ensure that our offer is visible to members, and our diverse and geographically dispersed network feel engaged and see the value of membership.

Responsibilities

Communications, Marketing and Brand:

• Lead ACU's external and internal communications, setting the direction for brand, content, digital, campaigns and publications, and ensuring consistency of voice across all channels.
• Oversee the Marcomms team in the delivery of the communications plan, providing strategic direction and delegating operational delivery whilst being hands-on with delivering activity where necessary.
• Act as the organisation's senior editor and brand guardian, setting and maintaining standards for external-facing content produced across the directorate, and supporting the individual brand identities of ACU-managed programmes.
• Ensure member-facing communications are produced to brand standard, informed by member intelligence, and aligned with the engagement and renewal calendar.
• Build and manage ACU's media and external partner relationships.
• Provide strategic communications advice to colleagues and senior leaders.
• Develop and be responsible for thought-leader credibility on a variety of issues, working closely with the Head of Policy and Research to translate our evidence into impactful communications and new opportunities for profile raising and influence with funders and decision-makers.
• Lead on internal communications and engagement, supporting our people and culture strategy.
• Lead on digital marketing strategy, including social media and paid marketing.
• Be responsible for the digital and website for the ACU and managed platforms, including the governance behind the ACU’s CMS (Umbraco) and member engagement platform, ACU Connect, ensuring compliance with cyber security standards.
• Work closely with the Head of Philanthropy and Head of Programmes, Business Development and International Mobility to support our engagement and stewardship of current and prospective funders, overseeing the production of impact reports, content and engagement events.
• Work closely with the Business Development team on funding bids for new programmes, highlighting the ACU's Marcomms and Engagement function as a key USP. 

Engagement:

• Provide strategic leadership of ACU's membership engagement function, ensuring that all engagement activity is coordinated, coherent, purposeful and directed toward member retention and value.
• Translate the data and insights produced by the Head of Membership and Events into engagement priorities for the team, ensuring activity is directed toward the universities most at risk of non-renewal and most in need of relationship attention.
• Hold a direct portfolio of member relationships, particularly with UK and European universities, maintaining regular contact with senior leaders and acting as ACU's relationship lead for these institutions.
• Work closely with the Head of Policy and Research to ensure that expert groups, communities of practice and thought leadership outputs are promoted to members and woven into engagement conversations.
• Champion use of CiviCRM to record engagement with members, ensuring a consistent and high-level of data integrity
• Ensure the organisation is strongly positioned with all key decision-makers and stakeholders, strengthening our government relations work and political engagement.

Regional Engagement Consultants:

• Hold functional line management responsibility for five part-time regional engagement consultants covering South Asia, South East Asia and India, Caribbean and Canada, Pacific and Africa.
• Develop a new way of working for this team, finding effective and efficient means to provide direction, share intelligence, track impact, and build team cohesion across a geographically dispersed network.
• Oversee the work of each consultant, setting contracts and agreed deliverables and supporting them to work in a way that is output-based and autonomous to deliver agreed KPIs.
• Set and maintain engagement standards across the consultant team, ensuring consistency of approach, quality of member interaction, and alignment with ACU's values and messaging.
• Act as out-of-hours contact for members on engagement leads’ nonworking days.
• Advise the team on sensitive topics and crisis communications.

Events:

• Provide strategic input to the events programme, ensuring that ACU's events calendar supports engagement objectives, reflects the brand, and connects to the communications and engagement strategy.
• Work with the Head of Membership and Events on joint event planning, providing communications and audience development support for flagship and commercial events.

Leadership and Directorate Contribution:

• Lead on the development and implementation of an integrated communications and engagement strategy, and help the ACU find new ways to engage our external (member, scholar, stakeholder and partner) and internal audiences and communicate our influence and impact.
• Contribute to directorate-level planning as a member of the External
• Affairs leadership team, bringing engagement intelligence, member insight and communications expertise to strategic decisions, ensuring that the four functions operate as a coherent whole rather than parallel workstreams.
• Lead the communications and engagement team, role modelling our values and coaching and developing colleagues to encourage innovation, quality, accountability and collaboration within your team and across the directorate.
• Lead the operational performance of the communications and engagement team including financial management, delivery models, continuous improvement and team performance.
• Be responsible for developing, leading, managing and quality assurance for the Communications function, including effective planning, business partnering and reporting, to achieve agreed KPIs and contract deliverables.

Skills, Competencies, Experience & Attributes

Essential Criteria:

• Significant experience leading communications or engagement functions in a complex organisation, ideally within higher education, international development or a membership body.
• Strategic thinker, demonstrable ability to translate data and insight into communications and engagement priorities and able to spot opportunities to engage internal and external audiences and steward and advance an organisation’s brand and reach, including across marketing, digital, media and stakeholder relations.
• Significant experience of working at a senior level in marketing or communications, skilled in devising and implementing successful communication strategies and plans, audience segmentation, content creation, delivery and the use of the various channels for effectiveness
• Strong knowledge of CMS, engagement platforms and social media. Strategy and governance, including a knowledge of latest trends and insights on user behaviour, data protection and cyber security standards.
• Extensive knowledge of CRM strategy for comms and engagement and embedding culture change amongst teams.
• Track record of effective external relationship management and experience of complex stakeholder relations/management.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, influencing and negotiating skills, including an ability to present complex ideas and information in a clear, succinct and persuasive manner and make effective presentations.
• Strong cross-cultural awareness in verbal and written communications, including an ability to flex styles ad-hoc.
• Strong editorial judgement with experience of maintaining high quality standards and advising senior colleagues on strategic communications positioning.
• Strong track record of managing and building the capacity of teams, experience of leading, empowering and motivating teams to promote a high-performance culture.
• Ability to lead and manage remote or dispersed teams.
• Extensive experience of business planning, including setting and monitoring KPIs, shaping strategies, and budget development, financial monitoring and reporting.
• Strong commitment to higher education and its influence throughout the Commonwealth and beyond.
• A highly proactive, self-motivated approach with the ability to take initiative and drive delivery.

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience working with universities, professional bodies, or international organisations.
• Experience working in international development or higher education.
• Experience working with higher education leaders, academics, policy makers and dignitaries.
• Knowledge of GenAI strategies and automation for Communications,
• Marketing and Engagement.

Values:

• Collaboration: We strive to build an empowered community who share ideas and catalyse change.
• Creativity: We encourage curiosity, innovation and exploring new ideas, adapting to an ever-changing world.
• Equity: We celebrate diversity, promote inclusion, and act with respect and integrity.
• Excellence: We endeavour to be impact-focused, delivering high standards and upholding our good reputation.

Compensation & Benefits

• 27 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays (part-time employees) and 4 Christmas closure days
• Generous pension scheme 5% employee contribution, 10% employer contribution 
• Enhanced maternity, paternity, and shared parental leave
• Significant investment in your personal and professional development
• Regular social activities
• Health and well-being programmes
• Give as you earn charitable donations scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Interest-free travel season ticket loan

Working locations

• Hybrid model, working in the London office and remotely

How to apply

• Apply via our recruitment portal, submitting your CV (maximum 2 pages) and online application form (250 words / 1,250 characters maximum) outlining how your skills, knowledge and experience meet the criteria for the role. Please include your motivation for applying.

Interviews

• Interviews will take place on 7th September 2026
• First stage interviews will take place virtually. A second stage will be conducted in person at our London office in the week commencing 14th September 2026

Policies

The ACU aims to ensure that no job applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation (defined as Protected Characteristics in the UK Equality Act 2010). In addition, no job applicant or employee will receive less favourable treatment regarding neurodiversity, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, accent or socio-economic background. We positively encourage applications from any underrepresented groups.

The people in our organisation must reflect the wider community. Bringing together a diverse range of people helps us perform to our best, whether bringing universities together from around the world, supporting international collaboration, providing great scholarship services or realising our ambitions to build a better world through higher education.  Our focus on Access and Inclusion through grants and initiatives that help to drive systemic change and by working with universities to widen access and reduce inequality helps to tackle socioeconomic disparities and level the playing field.

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