Senior Communications Lead, DACH & CEE

The Community You Will Join:

The Communications team is responsible for telling the Airbnb story around the world. Whether we are briefing press on inspiring travel trends, highlighting unique stories about our hosts, or explaining how travel on our platform benefits local families and communities, we are the voice of Airbnb on a broad range of topics. 

The Difference You will Make:

Based in Berlin, the Senior Communications Lead, DACH will be responsible for the overarching communications strategy across three key markets: Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The role also has responsibility for reactive communications oversight in Central and Eastern Europe.

Reporting into the EMEA Communications Director, the role will strategically lead the DACH communications team, which is made up of a team of three people, including consumer and corporate comms experts focused on the region. We also have agency partners in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Central & Eastern Europe, and successful management of these agency partners will be key to the role. This role will also be required to collaborate closely with the Country Manager for Central and Eastern Europe. 

The core focus of the role is to create industry leading strategies and campaigns that can deliver against the local business goals and the global comms priorities. This role is for a communicator who has solid experience in delivering campaigns and strategies that will inspire the team and the wider organization, and create a vision for the way that we seek to promote the Airbnb brand and products to a range of audiences. 

The role spans our corporate and policy work, where we face some regulatory challenges, as well as our consumer campaigns where we need to deliver strategies that will drive both brand awareness and positive sentiment. The role demands high level expertise in both consumer and corporate communications, with the adaptability to switch between each area regularly and apply best in class thinking to challenges and opportunities.

The right candidate will already be recognised as a leader in their field at this level, with a proven track record of using a range of comms strategies and disciplines to solve complex and ambiguous problems. They will also have a history of delivering projects across cross-functional teams, taking a strategic leadership role and anticipating challenges. The right candidate will also be expected to demonstrate a working knowledge of how to translate a global brand proposition to a local audience across the DACH markets.   

You must be comfortable working in a global company, delivering counsel and guidance to senior leadership in both Europe and within our HQ teams in the US. The successful candidate will have solid experience of creating internal advocacy among multiple senior audiences, as well as directing and inspiring a team of high performing communications professionals. 

A Typical Day: 

• Create, manage and drive the execution of the overarching communications strategy and plan, continuously aligning with the global and regional business and marketing strategies
• Direct and oversee the development and execution of market plans supporting Corporate Communications, Policy Communications, and Consumer Communications
• Develop inspiring and compelling comms strategies to challenge the team and the business to achieve beyond our existing success
• Provide strategic comms advice and counsel to our cross functional teams, collaborating with senior stakeholders from across the business (primarily Policy, Marketing, Business Operations) to work together to achieve goals.
• Responsible for maintaining a clear organizational structure for the team and overall team performance and career development. 

Your Expertise:

• 12-15 years of experience within high performing international organizations - either with agencies or in-house roles
• A team leader with both a record of leading high performing comms teams, and experience of working with cross-functional teams to drive success
• A proven history of encouraging and developing innovative industry-leading thinking and turning it into executable plans and campaigns 
  
• Experience of operating in a high performing cross functional team, acting as counsel on all comms related matters and being proactive in elevating the work of comms across the region
• A strong track record of developing inspiring goals that motivate team members to achieve personal and professional success
• Forward thinking, innovative and creative - proactively shares perspective at all levels of the organization
• Excellent problem solver with ability to anticipate future issues, unblock the most complex situations and facilitate drama-free environments where the team will thrive
• German native speaker with fluent business English. Working knowledge of other languages within the region will be desirable. 
  

Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging:

Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.