Director, Strategic & Creative Communications; U Intercollegiate Athletics

Director, Strategic & Creative Communications (6566U) Intercollegiate Athletics # 85497

The Department of Intercollegiate Athletics consists of more than 275 staff members and coaches and sponsors 30 varsity sports programs. These 30 programs include more than 850 student‑athletes who participate in the various sports programs annually within the National Collegiate Athletics Association.

April 24, 2026

Guided by the overarching Athletics strategic plan, the employee will create and lead the planning and execution of digital content and communications specific to the Department’s Olympic Sports portfolio and the sports they are assigned to either execute or oversee.

This employee will exhibit proficiency in graphic design and video editing platforms. A specific output created, managed and updated by the employee is the Olympic Sports media plan - an overarching strategy that highlights how each sport will communicate to the variety of audiences. The Director will also supervise 1‑2 staff members performing similar work and will provide direction, oversight, and guidance to them.

• Supervise and manage 1-2 Assistant Directors, Strategic & Creative Communications, through directing and providing leadership to achieve the goals of the unit. Ensure that direct reports are meeting the demands of the unit and the department’s mission, and executing their job tasks expertly and efficiently. Responsible for human resources oversight of direct reports, such as recruitment, hiring, training, evaluations, etc.

• As a manager of staff, engage with all direct reports and critical members of the assigned Olympic Sports teams to assist the immersion of the unit into the team, its student‑athletes, and coaches, all for the goal of sharing a consistent and exciting message for public consumption.
• As a contributor, engage with all members of the assigned Olympic Sports teams to learn the student‑athletes’ personalities, talents, and abilities, exploit coaches’ strengths for public consumption, identify sport influencers, and engage to broaden the message and identify and target critical audiences that can amplify the strategies of elevating the sport publicly.

• As a supervisor, manage, organize, and track the content in support and in alignment with the Media plan.
• As a contributor, extension, and critical player with the Olympic Sports team, capture content (as needed) in support and in alignment with the Media plan. Content can be in all forms – video, visual, graphic, written, spoken, etc. Platforms include, but are not limited to Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, iMovie, etc.

• Create, manage, communicate, and continue to revise a Media Plan template for staff to use. The media plan will highlight on a scheduled basis the flow of information, how communication will occur, cadence of messaging, types of required content, intended audiences and other key factors in publicizing the team.

• Collaboratively work with the management group that oversees content creators, Athletics digital ecosystems directors, Cal Athletics fundraisers and game day entertainment employees to ensure strategy is being followed and the unit is in sync with others.
• Keep a firm working knowledge of the overall strategy shared by these groups that in totality make up the external engine of Cal Athletics.

• Serve as the main trouble‑shooter, problem solver and the public’s management face for the unit and the Olympic sports in regards to all storytelling aspects.
• Project manage requests, coverage, and alterations or additions to the media plan and maintain historical knowledge of each sport.

Additional responsibilities include arranging and conducting interviews, maintaining and compiling records and statistics, and serving as a team historian for assigned sports.

• Strong background in managing staff members in a team environment promoting an established vision, direction…