VP, Brand Marketing & Communications

Position Summary

The Vice President, Brand Marketing & Communications is a senior leader accountable for defining, building and protecting the organization’s brand and reputation, and bringing its story to life through powerful storytelling across channels.

Reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer and serving as a key member of the Marketing Leadership Team, the VP leads the organization’s brand strategy, integrated content and creative strategy, public relations, media relations, internal communications, and social media. This role will shape, protect, and elevate the Foundation's reputation and voice, and lead an integrated brand, communications and content strategy that inspires philanthropy, deepens donor engagement, and enables fundraising growth.

The successful candidate will be a member of the SickKids Foundation Senior Management Team, and also partners with the Vice President, Precision Marketing to complete the marketing VP leadership team.

Key Responsibilities

Advance the mission, vision, and values of SickKids Foundation in partnership with Senior Management Team colleagues.
Work in partnership with the Senior Management Team to execute SickKids Foundation’s strategic plan.
Develop long-term and annual marketing strategies with the Marketing Leadership Team.
Champion a positive organizational culture and serve as an advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Lead, inspire and mentor four direct reports—Director of Brand Strategy, Director of Strategic Communications, Director of Creative & Content, Director of Public Relations and Communications—as well as a diverse, talented, and high-performing team of more than thirty-five (35) brand marketing professionals to ensure the mission and core values of SickKids Foundation are put into practice.
Ensure accountability of the team, encouraging and fostering collegiality and innovation within the marketing team and across SickKids Foundation.
Develop and evolve an enterprise brand strategy that strengthens awareness, trust and affinity while supporting the Foundation's long-term strategic priorities.
Develop and execute strategic and annual brand marketing, communications, and public relations plans that enhance brand equity and awareness while driving engagement, growth and performance.
Ensure consistent brand expression across all channels and experiences and establish governance that protects brand integrity while enabling innovation.
Lead enterprise content and communications strategy across all channels, building compelling narratives that bring our mission to life and enable fundraising success.
Work with key stakeholders in the hospital, including the communications team, hospital staff, patients, and families to tell the SickKids story impactfully.
Provide strategic communications support for major organizational initiatives and campaigns.
Provide strategic advice and counsel on brand strategy, communications, and public affairs issues to the Chief Executive Council (CEC).
Leverage storytelling to strengthen emotional connection while maintaining authenticity.
Strengthen the Foundation's reputation with donors, partners, government, healthcare stakeholders and the broader community, building trust through transparent and authentic communications.
Build proactive and mutually beneficial partnerships with external marketing and communication agencies, media outlets, and other partners to help leverage the SickKids brand.
Monitor emerging issues and proactively manage reputational and media risk for the Foundation.
Establish clear expectations, accountability frameworks, and performance measures to deliver marketing outcomes.
Accountable for the employee experience within team, fostering a culture of continuous learning, accountability to results, and change agility.

Core Competencies

The successful candidate will embody and have demonstrated success against the following competencies:

Stakeholder Engagement & Relationship Management - Builds trusted relationships with internal and external stakeholders to advance shared goals and strengthen organizational influence.
Executive Presence & Sound Judgment – Demonstrates credibility, resilience, and balanced judgment in complex, sensitive, and high-stakes situations.
Innovation & Continuous Improvement - Champions innovation, embraces emerging technologies and continuously improves communications strategies, capabilities and performance.
Digital & Data Fluency – Leverages data, technology, analytics, and emerging trends to inform strategy, improve performance, and support evidence-based decision-making.
Enterprise Leadership - Contributes as an enterprise leader, shaping organizational strategy and fostering collaboration, accountability and a culture of excellence.
Culture & Talent Stewardship – Champions a high-performance, values-based culture through coaching, development, and accountability, fostering growth and continuous improvement.
Results Orientation & Operational Excellence - Drives execution with discipline, delivering measurable outcomes through strategic planning, operational excellence and continuous improvement.
Donor & Mission-Centered Perspective – Approaches work with the unique perspectives of donors, patients, families, and hospital staff at the center.

Qualifications & Experience

While we know that for any job posting no one candidate will possess the qualifications being sought in equal measure, below is an outline of the qualifications we believe are important for a candidate to bring to the position or for the successful candidate to develop while in the role:

University degree or equivalent post-secondary accreditation, combined with a minimum of ten years of progressive senior management leadership experience in marketing.
Significant executive leadership experience in a combination of brand strategy, strategic communications, corporate affairs and public affairs within a complex organization.
A combination of senior roles encompassing both integrated account leadership and enterprise brand marketing.
Demonstrated success advising C-suite executives and Boards on communications and reputation.
Proven leadership skills with a track record of driving positive sustainable change.
Strong business acumen encompassing a broad range of customer or donor types.
Demonstrated success in building and retaining high-performance teams through inspiration, development, and coaching.
Exceptional interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills; high levels of emotional intelligence.
The ability to bring individuals and teams together, fostering engagement, alignment and leveraging collective strengths.
Strong commitment to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) through lived experience or comprehensive knowledge and awareness and a track record of self-guided learning or formal education in EDI.
Established performance of building ROI-driven marketing campaigns by leading a results-driven marketing team within a highly visible, well-known company with complex scope will be considered an asset.