Vice President, External Communications

Vice President of External Communications

At UKG, the work you do matters. The code you ship, the decisions you make, and the care you show a customer all add up to real impact. Today, tens of millions of workers start and end their days with our workforce operating platform. Helping people get paid, grow in their careers, and shape the future of their industries. That's what we do. We never stop learning. We never stop challenging the norm. We push for better, and we celebrate the wins along the way. Here, you'll get flexibility that's real, benefits you can count on, and a team that succeeds together. Because at UKG, your work matters—and so do you.

UKG is seeking a Vice President of External Communications to lead the company's global external reputation and influence strategy and strengthen UKG's leadership in Workforce Operations. Reporting to the Chief Communications Officer, this leader will turn UKG's enterprise narrative into market belief—shaping the conversations, stories, and proof that build reputation, trust, and category authority with C-suite leaders, customers, media, analysts, influencers, and the broader market.

The VP will lead an integrated organization spanning Product & Technology PR, Industry & Customer PR, International PR, Social, AI Discovery, Thought Leadership & Newsroom, and Analyst Relations. This is both a market-facing leadership role and a transformation mandate: building a modern, externally wired communications engine that creates the reputation foundation for Marketing to build relevance and demand, and for Product and Sales to prove customer value.

Shape Reputation & Market Leadership

• Set and lead UKG's global external communications strategy to strengthen UKG's reputation, differentiation, and leadership in Workforce Operations.
• Translate UKG's enterprise narrative into sustained external conversations that build belief in who UKG is, why we matter, and how we are different.
• Shape market perception around the forces transforming work and business, including workforce operations, frontline work, AI, productivity, and the flow of work.
• Move UKG from episodic visibility to sustained authority in the conversations we want to lead, using executives, research, customer outcomes, product innovation, and proprietary insight to reinforce a consistent story over time.

Lead a Modern External Communications Engine

• Lead an integrated global organization across PR, Social, AI Discovery, Thought Leadership & Newsroom, Analyst Relations, and international communications—bringing specialized disciplines together around one narrative and shared reputation outcomes.
• Build an audience-led, proactive operating model that starts with the conversations shaping the market rather than the moments UKG has to announce.
• Create the external foundation for the broader customer journey: Communications builds belief and reputation; Marketing creates buyer relevance; Product and Sales provide proof and value.
• Oversee the external dimension of reputation risk and crisis response, including media strategy, external stakeholder communications, social response, and reputation monitoring in close partnership with Corporate Communications.

Advise Executives & Shape the Market

• Serve as a trusted senior counselor to the CEO, CCO, and executive team on reputation, media strategy, competitive narratives, industry positioning, and emerging external issues.
• Bring an outside-in perspective to executive decision-making—identifying where UKG has whitespace, where perceptions need to shift, and where the company should lead.
• Maintain strong relationships with influential business and technology media, analysts, industry voices, and other external stakeholders while empowering leaders across the team to own relationships and outcomes.
• Build executive and customer voices into UKG's reputation strategy, creating opportunities for credible leaders to shape the conversations UKG wants to lead.

Connect Reputation to Growth

• Build a customer-powered reputation engine that uses credible customer voices and measurable outcomes to demonstrate UKG's impact on workforce and business performance.
• Partner closely with Marketing, Product, Sales, Customer Experience, and other teams so one UKG narrative travels through the customer journey without turning reputation, demand, and sales into the same work.
• Strengthen UKG's visibility and authority across media, analysts, social, search, AI-powered answer engines, and emerging channels.
• Establish a modern measurement framework focused on outcomes—including reputation, category association, share of voice, message penetration, analyst perception, executive influence, AI/search discoverability, customer advocacy, and contribution to strategic business priorities.

Build a High-Performing Organization

• Transform and scale a modern External Communications function by assessing talent, upgrading capabilities, clarifying roles, and establishing new ways of working.
• Build and develop an exceptional leadership team, create strong succession pipelines, and empower leaders to make decisions and own outcomes.
• Break down silos across disciplines and functions, aligning the organization around a common narrative, shared priorities, and clear accountability.
• Set a high performance bar and foster a culture that is externally curious, collaborative, fast-moving, data-informed, adaptable, and willing to challenge established ways of working.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive experience in external communications, public relations, corporate communications, reputation, or related disciplines, including significant senior leadership experience.
• Demonstrated success leading a complex, global external communications organization across multiple communications disciplines.
• Proven track record building or transforming a modern communications function, including organizational design, talent assessment, capability building, and leadership development.
• Deep expertise in reputation strategy, narrative development, media relations, executive counsel, issues management, and external storytelling.
• Strong business judgment and demonstrated ability to connect reputation and communications strategy to growth, market positioning, customer priorities, and business outcomes.
• Exceptional executive presence with the ability to advise CEOs and senior executives, influence enterprise decisions, and operate effectively in high-stakes environments.
• Established credibility and relationships with top-tier business, technology, and/or industry media and other influential external stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to build high-performing teams, develop leaders, and drive alignment across complex, highly matrixed organizations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Significant leadership experience in enterprise B2B SaaS, technology, or another complex technology-driven business.
• Experience overseeing product and technology PR, analyst relations, thought leadership, social, international communications, and emerging digital or AI-discovery capabilities.
• Experience establishing category leadership or repositioning a large enterprise technology company in the market.
• Strong understanding of how AI, search, social, and changing information-discovery behaviors are reshaping reputation and influence.

Basic Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive experience in external communications, public relations, corporate communications, reputation, or related disciplines, including significant senior leadership experience.

Core Competencies

• Narrative & Reputation Leadership: Turns enterprise strategy into a clear external narrative that builds belief, differentiation, and sustained market authority.
• Executive Counsel & Influence: Advises senior leaders with an outside-in perspective and clear recommendations in moments of opportunity, change, and risk.
• External Orientation: Stays deeply connected to customers, media, analysts, competitors, technology, and industry conversations and translates market signals into action.
• Transformation & People Leadership: Builds high-performing organizations, develops leaders, raises standards, and creates clarity, accountability, and trust through change.
• Business & Measurement Acumen: Connects reputation to customer and business outcomes and uses data to prioritize investment and demonstrate impact.

Success in the First 12–18 Months

• Elevate UKG's market position, building sustained authority around Workforce Operations and increasing the company's influence in the conversations shaping work, technology, and business performance.
• Establishes UKG as a more influential and externally wired company, with stronger presence and credibility across media, analysts, industry leaders, customers, social, search, and AI discovery.
• Turns UKG's enterprise narrative into a powerful reputation platform, creating greater consistency and impact from Communications through Marketing, Product, Sales, and the customer experience.
• Builds an External Communications organization recognized for its impact, with exceptional leaders, differentiated capabilities, clear accountability, and a culture that operates with speed, judgment, and ambition.
• Demonstrates the business value of reputation, with a modern measurement system showing meaningful gains in market leadership, influence, trust, discoverability, and connection to UKG's strategic growth priorities.

Company Overview:

UKG is the Workforce Operating Platform that puts workforce understanding to work. With the world's largest collection of workforce insights,