Director Internal Communications

Avalara is a rapidly growing technology company that’s fundamentally changing the world of transactional tax compliance. We deliver comprehensive, cloud-based automation solutions that adapt to the ever-changing global tax landscape.

Job Summary:

The Director of Internal Communications will be highly experienced in employee-related and people manager communications in North America and, ideally, across Europe and India. This individual is a hands-on leader who can provide strategic counsel to senior executives as well as lean into the day-to-day internal communications tasks and coach a team of direct reports. The Director will possess deep experience in a variety of issues management and people-related organizational announcements and have the proven ability to not only create communications plans from scratch but also program manage a comprehensive global internal communications calendar at a high-growth technology company, where change is constant. This leader will also mentor, manage, and grow a team of talented internal communicators. This strategic position will report to the company’s Senior Director of Corporate Communications. This role will work closely with the Chief People Officer (CPO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), General Counsel, and every leader within Avalara’s People and Culture (P&C) organization. The Director and their team will draft, edit, and distribute internally facing communications for business related news as well as HR initiatives including career development, regional and global compensation and benefits programs, performance management, rewards and recognition, onboarding, employee engagement, diversity, and others. Additionally, the successful candidate will play a critical role in helping to deliver engaging digital employee communications by managing our intranet, what we call the Grove, and supporting content creation and promotion of our virtual global company meetings with our CEO and other business leaders, called AvaChats, as well as support content creation and execution of our annual global company meeting, CONNECT, which will be held in-person and virtual in February 2024.

Job Responsibilities:

• Create and program manage a global internal communications strategy, messaging and collateral (written and visual) for employee and people manager communications at Avalara.
• Support strategic communications for the Chief People Officer (CPO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), spanning internal and external media channels, positioning them as trusted, transparent, C-Suite leaders.
• Host and support critical internal stakeholder meetings to drive alignment, present plans and timelines, and gain agreement. This includes global monthly meetings with the CEO and other business leaders, HR-related meetings, leadership team meetings, and more.
• Serve as trusted strategic communications counsel to executives and HR business partners, collaborating with Avalara’s Corporate Communications team on a coordinated approach, annual communications plan, and related messaging and materials.
• Partner with Talent Acquisition and Marketing in updating and implementing a global employer brand narrative that is tailored to specific geographies.
• Partner with the HR leadership team and regional HR and leadership teams to develop a cohesive global calendar and communications strategies for key HR initiatives.
• Review all communications materials created by the internal communications team members.
• In partnership with HR business partners, supervise communications to managers while advancing our capabilities to reach this critical audience and convert them into communicators.
• Align to a global strategy, corporate messaging, and standards for all written and visual communications with Avalara’s Corporate Communications, Brand, and Marketing teams.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree and 15+ years of relevant internal communications experience at technology company managing a team of direct reports; strong preference for those who specifically worked with HR teams in North America, Europe, and India
• Must have deep issues management and people-related organizational announcements experience and expertise
• Strong technical skills for internal material development programs (MS Office – Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others) and communications platforms (Slack, Zoom, Teams, etc.)
• Strong executive presence and negotiation skills
• Extreme attention to detail, time management, organization skills.
• Excellent planning, project management, prioritization, and presentation skills
• Must have a positive and flexible attitude for working in a fast-paced environment and be able to build strong relationships across various departments and functions

About Avalara:

We’re building cloud-based tax compliance solutions to handle every transaction in the world. Imagine every transaction you make — every tank of gas, cup of coffee, or pair of sneakers, every movie ticket, meal kit, or streamed song, every sensor-to-sensor ping. Nearly every time you make a purchase, physical or digital, there’s an accompanying unique and nuanced tax compliance calculation. The logic behind calculating taxes — the rules, rates, and boundaries is a global, layered, three-dimensional mess of complexity, with compliance dictated by governments and applied by every business, every day.

Avalara works with businesses of all sizes, all over the world — from corner stores to gigantic global retailers — to calculate tax accurately and automatically, at speeds measured in milliseconds. That’s a massive technical challenge, in terms of scale, reliability, and complexity, and we do it better than anyone. That’s why we’re growing fast. Headquartered in Seattle, Avalara has offices across the U.S. and around the world, in Brazil, Canada, India, U.K, Belgium and across Europe.

Equal Opportunities

Avalara is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, age, gender, national orientation, disability, sexual orientation, US Veteran status, or any other factor protected by law.

Avalara