Schillings
Director, Schillings Communications
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Schillings Communications
Schillings handles high stakes opportunities and threats for an international clientele: successful individuals, businesses, and high-profile organisations across the world. We support our clients to achieve their goals by developing winning strategies to protect their freedom to operate, and are the first port of call in a crisis, defending our clients from attacks on their reputations, privacy, and security. Schillings’ offer is unique to the market, combining strategic communications with law, intelligence & investigations, digital resilience, and security.
Schillings is a collaborative and welcoming place to work, with a positive culture, strong values, and a developed service ethic. We require commitment, diligence, curiosity, agility, and professionalism, and in return provide competitive packages, stimulating challenges, and interesting work. We are committed to sharing learning and creating development opportunities so you can progress your career with us. Our people’s career trajectories and average longevity at Schillings underline this.
Join us and become part of our story.
Schillings Communications
Founded in 2023 to help clients navigate the new terrain of scrutiny, Schillings Communications’ work spans agenda-setting campaigns and public policy, to crisis management and long-term senior counsel. We advise global corporates, internationally influential principals, and family offices through geopolitical and generational change. We proactively shape narratives and engage stakeholders to build and protect our clients’ interests.
Schillings Communications’ clients have featured on the front and back pages, while Founding Partners Victoria O’Byrne and George Pascoe-Watson were recognised as leaders in the PR Week Power Book 2026 and Spear’s 500 index for reputation management.
Job Title: Director, Strategic Communications
Reporting to: Partners
Job Purpose:
Schillings are looking for an experienced Director to join our Strategic Communications business, adding breadth and depth to our multidisciplinary skillset. Schillings Communications provides senior counsel during high-stakes situations, rather than steady-state PR. Under the guidance of the Partners leading the practice, you will work collaboratively with experts across Schillings to proactively devise and execute communications strategies that protect our clients’ reputations and enable clients to deliver their objectives.
The Schillings Communications business, established in 2023, is on a trajectory from start-up to critical mass, and you will have the opportunity to contribute to the development of the practice from day one. You will work alongside our digital resilience, legal, intelligence, investigations, and security practices to offer clients world-class counsel, using your skills in a uniquely collaborative environment to provide holistic solutions to complex client needs.
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Role Accountabilities:
- Senior communications counsel: Acts as a senior expert in strategic communications, in dealing with complex client problems, advising on complex, high-stakes client situations, and providing clear, practical, and commercially aware counsel.
- Client and stakeholder management: Builds trusted senior relationships with clients and Schillings partners, manages demanding stakeholder environments, anticipating needs and ensuring the highest standard of client care and communication.
- Client engagement management: Owns the effective delivery of client matters, acting as a project lead. Directors ensure work is well scoped, commercially controlled, and delivered by high-performing teams to achieve excellent client outcomes.
- Commercial ownership:
- Manages budgets, profitability, resource allocation, time management, risk, and billing discipline, exercising sound judgment to identify and address potential issues.
- Commercially aware of client’s business interests.
- Practice growth: Supports partners in developing the business by strengthening operations, identifying opportunities for growth (of existing client relationships, mandates, or new business development initiatives), and fostering effective collaboration across disciplines.
- People leadership and standards: Develops the skills and experience of junior colleagues, delegates effectively, and role models high standards, accountability, and excellence across client work and team delivery.
- Firm contribution: Acts as an ambassador for Schillings and its values, contributing positively to the firm’s culture, reputation, and strategic objectives and guiding others to do the same. Actively participating in complementary external events.
- Multidisciplinary delivery: Works confidently with experts from across the business with a clear understanding of how legal, investigations, security and diplomacy, digital resilience, and strategic communications capabilities can be combined to provide holistic solutions that solve complex client problems.
- Technical ability: Excellent in the tradecraft of strategic communications, demonstrating strong strategic and critical thinking skills. Confidently navigates ambiguity, thinking through concepts and analysing risks to problem-solve at speed. Develops creative solutions to client issues.
Knowledge, Skills, and Experience Required:
- 12+ years of relevant experience working agency-side, or alternatively in a high-profile/dynamic business or public sector organisation. Ideally has a blend of consultancy and in-house experience.
- Experience of strategic communications and high-profile crisis work for demanding and exacting clients or stakeholders. Strong judgment assessing client situations to offer a strategic and tactical response to clients and partners.
- Demonstrable ability to build trusted senior client relationships, manage demanding stakeholders, anticipate client needs, and provide clear, confident counsel in high-stakes situations.
- Strong understanding of the media landscape, digital channels, and the role of communications in shaping and protecting reputation.
- An inspiring people manager, project manager, and communicator who delegates effectively and is strongly results-focused. Able to work effectively across disciplines and contribute to a unified, multidisciplinary client offer.
- Commercially minded, entrepreneurial, and showing a high degree of personal initiative and drive to grow the business and deliver for clients. Evidence of contributing to client growth, whether through expanding existing relationships, developing mandates, or supporting new business opportunities.
- Collaborative with proven ability to set, maintain, and role model high standards, building accountability, quality, and excellence across client work and team delivery.
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Life at Schillings
Given our bold and innovative business strategy, it is not surprising that Schillings has a very strong culture. The atmosphere is highly collaborative and focused on excellence. We have worked hard over the years to develop a coaching culture. Schillings has adopted a set of values to put at the heart of this, and they reflect the intention and tenor of our ambitious plans. They are: ‘Innovative; Bold; United; and Excellent’. Our client list speaks for the outstanding results that have been delivered over many years, and the task now is to grow without losing any of the commitment to delivering for clients or our service ethos. Finding people who share our values and can thrive in this environment is key to our success.
It takes a unique mix of people to create something truly great. We appreciate that diversity of thought, background, and culture creates the best environment to truly innovate, solve problems, and achieve our goals. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds – if you are driven and want to achieve your best, then we will give you the platform and support to succeed.
Please let us know if there are any extenuating circumstances we should consider, or any adjustments we may need to make to our selection process, when making your application.
Find our candidate privacy notice here, Candidate Privacy Notice (schillingspartners.com)
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