External Affairs Manager - Regional

Are you looking for an exciting external affairs role, where your experience of building relationships with senior external and internal stakeholders will make a real difference? Our external affairs team is responsible for delivering National Highways' external affairs strategy in support of our corporate priorities and business plan. You will work closely with senior leaders and teams across National Highways to connect us with some of our most influential regional audiences, including politicians, industry and business groups. You will be a champion for external affairs This role will be based in Guildford or Bristol. What you'll be leading on:

• Managing relationships with key regional stakeholders and influencers - to protect and enhance our reputation in line with our External Affairs strategy and wider communications campaigns.
• Managing responses and queries from project teams to support regional and local engagement, advising on engagement plans and sharing actionable stakeholder insight.
• Supporting the delivery of a regional stakeholder visit programme, working with the press team and others to connect stakeholders with our work
• Supporting the delivery of regional engagement events, such as organising roundtables
• Coordinating policy briefings, tracking engagement and sharing stakeholder insight to inform the wider communications strategy and campaigns
• Supporting regional leaders and project teams to manage issues and opportunities, including through provision of a regional issues tracker and risk register
• Championing best practice and common engagement principles to improve the quality of stakeholder engagement across National Highways
  
  Experience of external affairs/public affairs/government relations or strategic stakeholder engagement
• Confidence, ability, and integrity to develop and maintain relationships with senior leaders and influential stakeholders
• Commitment to delivering excellent communications and championing best practice stakeholder engagement
• Flexible team player, with a proactive approach to delivering good outcomes
• Comfortable working under pressure and to tight and changing deadlines, with an ability to manage complex issues, We are passionate about working together to deliver creative and compelling communications, building advocacy, increasing awareness and improving driver confidence about how to drive safely on our roads.
  
  Our role is to lead and deliver communications and engagement activity that showcases the positive impact of roads investment, supporting the delivery of the RIS and building advocacy for future investment. We partner with the business to build our company's reputation as a trusted operator of the network that puts its customers and their safety first.