Associate Vice President, Communications Studio 09/21/2026

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 222,000 - 244,000; Full time

Job summary

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation seeks an Associate Vice President, Communications Studio, to lead a multidisciplinary team responsible for turning RWJF’s communications strategy into action. You will set creative direction, ensure high‑impact campaigns, and drive brand integrity while embedding equity and TRT principles across all work.

You will oversee a redesigned Communications Department structure, partner with senior leaders, and manage external agencies and budgets.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 15 years of relevant experience in communications leadership.
• Experience leading an integrated communications function spanning multiple channels.
• Ability to travel to RWJF’s Princeton, NJ or Washington, DC offices as needed.

Responsibilities

• Set the creative vision and quality standards for RWJF communications across campaigns and content.
• Translate priorities into integrated plans across digital, creative, media relations, messaging, and branding.
• Lead high‑priority campaigns from planning through launch with clear scope and ownership.
• Align Studio capabilities with the Foundation’s top priorities and foster cross‑discipline collaboration.
• Strengthen RWJF’s brand and uphold equity, inclusion, and TRT principles in communications.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic thinking

Communication

Equity & inclusion

Change management

Job description

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), located in Princeton, N.J., is a leading national philanthropy dedicated to taking bold leaps to transform health in our lifetime. To get there, we must work to dismantle structural racism and other barriers to health. Since 1972, we have focused on developing and promoting innovations in health and healthcare to improve the lives of millions. Through funding, convening, advocacy, and evidence-building, we work side-by-side with communities, practitioners, and institutions to achieve health equity faster and pave the way, together, to a future where health is no longer a privilege, but a right.

At RWJF, we work toward three Generational Goals to transform health in our lifetime: Economic Inclusion for Family Wellbeing, Equitable and Accountable Public Health and Healthcare Systems, and Healthy and Equitable Community Conditions.

We take seriously our responsibilities, and we pledge to work in ways that reflect our Guiding Principles. These are rooted in equity and influence everything we do at RWJF. Equity, diversity, inclusion, and collaboration enable our staff’s wide range of experiences, passions, and perspectives to strengthen our ability to address our nation’s most pressing health issues and support a culture of belonging. Part of this work includes actively shaping an inclusive organization where all staff members thrive as we build and use our capabilities, voice, and power to advance health equity. RWJF offers a collaborative, collegial, and creative work environment. With a career at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, you will make a difference.

About This Opportunity

Reporting to the chief communications officer and vice president, Communications Programs, the associate vice president, Communications Studio, leads the team responsible for bringing RWJF’s communications strategy to life.

RWJF has redesigned its Communications Department around three integrated teams: Voice Strategy sets direction, the Communications Studio brings that strategy to life, and Operations provides the infrastructure that enables the work. The Studio brings together digital, creative, media relations, messaging, and content as one multidisciplinary team.

The associate vice president will set the Studio’s creative direction, translate strategic priorities into integrated, high-impact communications, strengthen RWJF’s brand, and align people, resources, and external partners around the Foundation’s highest-priority work. This is an opportunity to lead a talented team in a new configuration—strengthening how the Studio works across disciplines, raising the quality and ambition of its work, and shaping how RWJF shows up at a consequential moment for health and health equity.

RWJF’s Truth, Repair, and Transformation (TRT) process has examined the origins of the Foundation’s wealth, its grantmaking, its culture, and the ways its practices have harmed communities most affected by health inequities. TRT is an institutional strategy and decision‑making framework that informs how RWJF works—including what we say, whose expertise we recognize and elevate, and which stories we tell.

The associate vice president will bring a deep commitment to equity, RWJF’s mission, and its Guiding Principles and will integrate the insights of TRT into communications, partnerships, workflows, and decision‑making. This leader will help ensure that equity is reflected not only in what RWJF communicates, but also in how the Studio works, whose voices are amplified, and how communications decisions are made.

RWJF is an institution in transformation, and the Communications Department’s redesign is one expression of that larger change. The successful candidate will bring experience leading through transformation—creating clarity as new structures take hold, building trust across teams, maintaining high standards, and helping colleagues establish new ways of working together.

• Creative and communications leadership: Set the creative vision and quality standards for RWJF communications, raising the ambition, distinctiveness, and impact of campaigns, content, and experiences.
• Integrated communications: Translate priorities established by the Voice Strategy unit into integrated plans across digital, creative, media relations, messaging, content, and experiential channels.
• Campaign leadership: Lead high-priority consequential campaigns and initiatives from planning through launch, establishing clear scope, sequencing, responsibilities, resources, and decision points.
• Studio leadership: Align Studio capabilities and capacity around the Foundation’s highest-priority work and establish effective workflows and collaboration across disciplines.
• Brand stewardship: Steward and evolve RWJF’s brand, ensuring consistency while strengthening its bias toward innovation, bold direction, and meaningful impact.
• Judgment and discernment in sensitive situations: Exercise sound judgment and discernment in crisis, internal, and other sensitive communications, bringing calm, discretion, and timely decision‑making while working closely with senior leaders and key partners.
• People leadership: Build and lead a high‑performing multidisciplinary team by setting clear expectations, coaching, and developing staff, and strengthening the capabilities needed for integrated communications.
• External partners and budgets: Select and manage agencies, vendors, and other partners and oversee Studio budgets with clear expectations for quality, scope, timing, and cost.
• Enterprise partnership: Build trusted relationships across Communications and RWJF, including senior leaders, and provide sound judgment on sensitive, crisis, and internal communications.
• Equity and inclusion: Embed equitable and inclusive practices in team leadership, decision‑making, partner selection, audience engagement, and communications outcomes.
• Perform other duties as assigned.
• Commitment to racial and health equity and to advancing inclusive, community‑centered approaches to communications and leadership, consistent with RWJF’s mission, Guiding Principles, and Truth, Repair, and Transformation (TRT) approach.
• Experience leading or operating within an integrated communications function spanning areas such as creative, digital, media relations, messaging and content, and brand.
• Served in a communications studio, agency, newsroom, or in‑house center of excellence responsible for high‑volume, high‑visibility execution.
• Demonstrated ability to translate enterprise, advocacy, or brand strategy into coordinated communications across internal teams, channels, and external partners.
• Strong creative judgment and demonstrated ability to raise the ambition, quality, and distinctiveness of communications and inspire teams and partners to produce high‑impact work.
• Experience stewarding and evolving a brand across campaigns, content, experiences, and other audience‑facing communications.
• Demonstrated experience leading, coaching, and developing multidisciplinary teams, setting clear expectations, strengthening capabilities, and fostering an inclusive, high‑performing culture.
• Experience selecting and managing agencies, vendors, or production partners, with accountability for scope, quality, budgets, and results.
• Demonstrated history of supporting crisis response and/or sensitive internal communications in partnership with operations, legal, or senior leadership.
• Experience navigating and leading through organizational change, including creating clarity, building trust across teams, maintaining high standards, and helping establish new ways of working.
• Experience advancing equity, inclusion, or community‑centered approaches within communications, campaigns, or organizational practices.
• Minimum of 15 years of relevant experience
• Ability to travel to RWJF’s Princeton, N.J., or Washington, D.C., offices for relevant internal meetings and other in‑person events, as requested, and to travel as needed for grantee meetings, conferences, site visits, and community events.

Candidates whose experience exceeds the minimum requirements will be given particular consideration for a higher placement within the salary range:

• Five (5) years of progressive experience leading an integrated communications function spanning areas such as creative, digital, media relations, messaging and content, and brand.
• Ten (10) years of progressive experience leading an integrated communications function spanning areas such as creative, digital, media relations, messaging and content, and brand.

Physical Requirements/Working Conditions

The associate vice president will perform job duties in a typical business office environment. Specific physical abilities required by this job include operating basic office equipment. The incumbent will be required to attend meetings, both in person and off‑site via phone or videoconference. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions. RWJF is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Position's Assigned Office Location

This position is assigned to our Princeton, N.J. office.

Hybrid: Flexible Purpose (HFP) Explained

As of January 1, 2023, the Foundation has implemented a model we call Hybrid: Flexible Purpose (HFP). RWJF’s new operating model is the infrastructure (e.g., policies, practices, protocols, procedures, systems) that forms the basis for how the day‑to‑day operations are managed, culture is built and nurtured, and mission is delivered. This model is designed to meet the needs of the organization while giving employees as much flexibility as possible. On‑site participation is determined by job responsibilities, organizational and team‑level requirements, and mandatory gatherings throughout the year. While there are no fixed days per week, all employees are expected to plan their time on‑site and cover commuting expenses as needed to meet those expectations. Learn more about our operating model and in‑office requirements .

The non‑negotiable starting salary for this position is $222,240. Candidates who the Foundation determines have directly related experience exceeding the minimum requirements outlined above may be provided a higher starting salary of up to $244,420. All salary offers are non‑negotiable.

A transition stipend is provided to all new hires to aid in costs related to transitioning to a new job.

Our Committment to Diversity and Inclusion

We take bold leaps to transform health in our lifetime and pave the way, together, to a future where health is for everyone.

Media Resources & News

Visit our press room to find out who our key points of contact are, including supporting research, expertise, and multimedia assets needed for publication.