View Vacancy - Public Engagement and Communication Officer, Department for International Trade (DIT) B3 (32/17 NR)

Main purpose of job:

As part of the UK Government’s Africa trade team, the Public Engagement and Communication Officer is responsible for the public-facing activity of the DIT teams in Nairobi and the East Africa region. The job holder will coordinate and deliver strategic and value-adding public engagement activities and proactively work with media to magnify the British Government’s trade agenda and support the delivery of our business priorities across Nairobi and East Africa, especially in our key sectors and markets.

You will work to the Head of Public Engagement and Communication for Africa (based in Johannesburg) and the East Africa Trade Director (based in Tanzania). You will work closely with the rest of the Africa trade team; and especially with Public Engagement and Marketing colleagues in North, West and Southern Africa; in the Marketing hub in Dubai; and with the DIT Marketing team in London to identify and implement the best ways to generate demand for British goods and services across the region; help British business success in Africa; promote the UK as a great place to invest in; and encourage UK investment into the region.

Key to success will be understanding the aims of our multi-year, sector-specific campaigns and working very closely with the sector leads to create and deliver a programme of public events and communication activity designed to help them achieve their targets. You will also need to build relationships with the regional trade media to ensure coverage of British business success. You should expect some travel across the region and to the UK

High Value Campaigns in East Africa are currently focussed on Infrastructure (Uganda), Oil & Gas (Tanzania) and Renewables (Kenya) and the region holds vast trade potential with approximately £1.3bn exports and £925m imports. As part of the British Government’s commitment to increasing UK exports, DIT Kenya, in conjunction with colleagues across Africa, is developing a trade strategy to identify and better tap into this vast potential and increase trade.

We are looking for a highly organised person with a strong attention to detail, ability to take the initiative, work accurately within deadlines and with limited supervision, and be a strong team member who works collaboratively.

Key Responsibilities:

• The Public Engagement position is responsible for building and reinforcing the perception of the UK’s economic strengths and business sector excellence, as well as promoting the opportunities in both Kenya and East African region to British businesses.
• The Public Engagement Officer will support both DIT Kenya and the East African region with marketing requirements, work with suppliers to develop and produce collateral with value for money, manage online marketing tools, act as a brand guardian e.g. the GREAT campaign, and also work on admin and finance functions - all in close collaboration with the sub African Marketing team based in South Africa and the Marketing Hub in Dubai.

Roles and responsibilities:

• Work closely with the Trade Advisers for Infrastructure (Uganda), Oil & Gas (Tanzania) and Renewables (Kenya) on promoting the current High Value Campaign, and any more that are developed in the coming months, ensuring that it is given maximum publicity to ensure UK companies are in pole position to win multi million pound contracts.
• Work with DIT teams on country-specific public engagement plans to support delivery of their key objectives. This will include managing the calendar of events across the region as a day to day contact.
• Proactively implement the commercial communication strategy to raise the profile of UK government trade messages and commercial successes in traditional media across the region.
• Work closely with the trade teams across the region to develop and deliver integrated and innovative public engagement campaigns to help deliver our business objectives and support priority campaigns.
• Ensure maximum positive profile and impact from all commercial events, visits and other public engagement activities across the region, internally and externally, including through creating appropriate content and collateral and working through existing UK Government campaigns, such as GREAT.
• Work closely with Media teams in Kenya and across the region ensuring a seamless and professional presentation.
• Ensure appropriate, on-brand and up-to-date materials and content are available and used appropriately for all regional commercial events to maximise the UK’s key messages and profile.
• Ensure all marketing and events work is evaluated, with lessons learned and implemented, to ensure consistently high standards and continuous improvement in performance and impact.
• Work with the Head of Public Engagement Africa to manage partners and sponsors.
• Ensure maximum value for money from all expenditure and work with the Director (East Africa) to secure additional funding for value-adding, customer-facing activity.   
• Liaise closely with DIT Kenya and across the region and appropriate Residence Managers, to ensure events e.g. DIT customer receptions, are well presented and professionally executed.

The successful applicant will have experience in delivering public engagement activity and working with the media. You will be energetic and creative, devising new and different ways to engage clients and stakeholders and promote the UK Government’s messages and activity in the commercial arena. You will be a strong team player with excellent interpersonal skills and a proven track record of working with others. You will be able to juggle a number of different demands on your time at the same time, sometimes working to very tight deadlines. A strong eye for detail, to deliver slick and impactful events and ensure public engagements are branded correctly and magnify the UK appropriately. You will be confident using a mix of traditional, social and digital media platforms. Media experience and networks beneficial but not essential.

The position will require flexible working, the successful applicant must be able to deliver events including outside standard working hours e.g. working breakfasts, dinners and evening receptions. 

Resources managed (staff and expenditure):

No Line Management responsibilities. Close liaison with budget holder required.

• Relevant Communication Degree
• 2-5 years of relevant experience.
• A track record of managing multi-year projects and/or campaigns.
• Excellent knowledge of using social and digital media in a professional environment.
• Private sector experience.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and organisational skills, self-motivated and results driven.
• Great team player, able to build enduring and strong working relationships with a wide variety of people and work very well across teams.
• Good client engagement skills.
• Strong IT skills in Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint.
• Able to adapt to a quick changing and evolving business environment; deliver in the face of uncertainty; and work proactively and autonomously.
• Ability to work with people at all levels of seniority in an international environment and within a fast paced, results orientated organisation.
• Experience of delivering events and activities to budget and specification and against tight deadlines.
• Fluent written and spoken English.
• This work will require some regional and international travel so a valid and clean passport is essential.