Senior Press Officer - FTC

To protect and promote the Nando's business and brand in corporate and public affairs arenas.

• To support the Nando's growth strategy by executing a corporate affairs plan which strategically builds the Nando's corporate brand image and reputation, both in the UK&I and internationally
• To protect the brand from damage by proactively addressing areas of reputational risk and championing crisis preparedness
• To support in crisis, providing operational and strategic support to business units where appropriate
• To partner with brand marketing teams to safeguard and enable their brand-building activities
• To collaborate with the People and Ops teams to deliver compelling and engaging internal comms
• To partner with the leaders of our Do The Right Thing initiatives (eg. Sustainability, Employment access), providing strategic communications and supporting the direction and reporting of activity
Specific Areas of Responsibility: Working with the HoRC to develop and deliver the Nando's corporate affairs strategy, with buy in from UK&I CEO, Shareholders and group stakeholders:
• Working with HoRC & CCO to create, evolve and deliver on a Crisis Management Process, which provides our business with a clear methodology on handling crisis issues, line-of-sight on all crisis issues and escalation procedures. Proactively work to prepare for and mitigate likely crisis scenarios and run war room simulations to test and find gaps in our plans.
• To support the Head of Reputation and Communication in the development of the UK&I public affairs strategy, and work with stakeholders to deliver it (inc. our approach for engaging with NGOs, government agencies, regulatory bodies and other public organisations).
• Promote best practice within the Customer Department and constantly look to improve processes and procedures.
• Business partner brilliantly with other functions (particularly the Food Team, Grocery, Recruitment and Project Management) to identify risk area's as well as brand building opportunities from a corp comms perspective.
• To manage industry-leading partner agencies who will help to support the corporate comms strategy and outputs.
Press Office:
• To manage the UK&I press office from a risk perspective alongside a Consumer Publicist who looks after consumer press opportunities.
• Set up a basic press office infrastructure to support the Group structure (handling press and media enquiries at a company level and cascading relevant press internationally for local market pick-up).
• Writing press statements when needed.
Measurement:
• Constantly review the effectiveness of all activity and use this information to improve practices and plan for the future.
• To contribute to the existing annual corporate brand health management process.
Development and Embedding Risk Management Capability:
• To proactively manage brand reputational risk and opportunity by identifying critical themes across the business on an ongoing basis.
• Act as the UK Risk and Reputation expert helping the HoRC to support in-market teams in the development of local capability.
• Be responsible for keeping the Crisis procedures current, and fit for purpose.
Embedding Crisis Capability:
• Support the Head of Reputation and Communication to embed and support crisis management capability at all levels of the company.
• To ensure that company policy, statements and channels of communication are in place to support market teams.
• To ensure that the company maintains an 'always on' focus on crisis preparedness at all levels.
Internal Communications:
• To collaborate with the internal comms team to engage Nandocas on every level, through a variety of channels.
This summarises the main key responsibilities of the role.There may, however, be other reasonable requests made and other responsibilities included from time to time. This role will be UK-based, at our Putney offices Key Stakeholders:
• UK&I CEO, CCO, COO, Product director
• UK&I Customer team, internal comms and CFO
• Operators and CS departments such as Technical and Safety Teams
  
  5yrs+ years in client-side PR, corporate communications or corporate affairs roles
• Experience managing PR and corporate affairs
• Calm and composed under pressure, instilling confidence in those around them. Able to distinguish the critical from the chaos, and lead a team of internal peers and external partners, with sleeves rolled up.
• Experience in coordinating the publishing of company annual results
• A degree or post-graduate qualification
• Graduate-level proficiency in writing
• Excellent English communication skills - written and spoken
• Highly relationship-oriented and able to influence with credibility across levels and geographies
• Self-starting and able to make decisions independently
#LI-DNI

This is a 12 month maternity cover and will be a hybrid role based in our Putney office 3 days a week. Ideally looking to have someone start in February 2025.