Develop and execute communications plans for new city launches and policy priorities, aligned to regulatory milestones, operational readiness, permit decisions, contract deadlines, and other outcomes that support Serve's license to operate.
- Lead day-to-day communications execution for policy, public affairs, and market-entry work across priority markets.
- Identify and engage local audiences who shape public opinion, including editorial boards, business leaders, accessibility advocates, neighborhood association leaders, academics, and influential local voices.
- Build and manage local media strategies and reporter relationships across priority markets, including local, trade, tech, AI, culture, business, mobility, accessibility, and urban policy outlets.
- Sequence announcements, validator activity, earned media, and stakeholder engagement to support permit asks, contract announcements, policy milestones, and public affairs campaigns.
- Build and manage networks of named third-party validators who can provide credible, on-the-record support in priority markets.
- Monitor legislation, regulation, media coverage, and opposition activity that could affect Serve's license to operate, and recommend communications responses before issues gain momentum.
- Partner with Government Relations on federal, state, and city engagements by translating policy and regulatory developments into clear narratives for media, partners, stakeholders, and the public.
- Support messaging for testimony, hearings, comment letters, rulemaking processes, regulatory engagement, and other public affairs priorities.
- Maintain incident response playbooks and coordinate communications execution during sensitive moments, including rapid response support in partnership with Legal, Operations, Government Relations, and Communications.
- Draft holding statements, talking points, Q&A, fact sheets, one-pagers, reactive press materials, and briefing materials for use across markets.
- Prepare local general managers, operations leads, partner spokespeople, and executives for media interviews, stakeholder meetings, and public-facing engagements.
- Manage inbound media inquiries with sound judgment about when to engage, decline, redirect, or escalate.
Qualifications- 5+ years of experience in communications, public affairs, government relations communications, political campaigns, or issue advocacy.
- Experience supporting a campaign or campaign-adjacent effort, such as a ballot measure, contested council or state race, issue advocacy campaign, regulatory fight, or state legislative effort.
- Experience working with policy, government relations, legal, or regulatory teams in a regulated or high-visibility environment.
- Experience developing communications strategies that support public affairs, market entry, stakeholder engagement, or policy outcomes.
- Experience building relationships with reporters at the national, state, city, local, or trade level.
- Strong writing skills with the ability to move between policy precision, media-ready language, talking points, briefing materials, and reactive statements.
- Ability to operate independently, manage multiple market workstreams in parallel, and make sound judgment calls in fast-moving situations.
- Willingness and ability to travel regularly to priority markets to build local stakeholder and media relationships from the ground up.
- Experience developing communications strategies that support policy outcomes, regulatory decisions, public affairs campaigns, or government relations objectives.
What Makes You Stand Out - Experience in mobility, autonomous vehicles, robotics, delivery, transportation, urban policy, or another contested-space technology category.
- In-house experience at a high-growth company entering new geographic markets.
- Experience supporting crisis, incident response, or sensitive issues communications in a regulated industry.
- Existing local media, public affairs, or validator relationships in major U.S. metros.
- Experience building coalitions, third-party validator networks, or local stakeholder campaigns.
- Experience supporting communications tied to permits, rulemaking, hearings, comment letters, public meetings, or government decision-making processes.
- Experience working closely with executives, local operators, partner spokespeople, or government affairs leaders on external communications.
