Director, Brand, Content and Comms

Valence; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Generous PTO

Retirement plan

Equity

Top‑tier compensation

Job summary

Valence, a leader in talent transformation and AI coaching, seeks a senior marketing leader to own brand strategy, external communications, and thought leadership. You will shape messaging, build executive voice, and drive influencer-level programs with Microsoft and other Fortune 500 partners.

You will lead a lean, startup-velocity marketing team, manage a content strategist and events lead, oversee agency partnerships, and scale the function as the business grows—reporting to the VP of

Qualifications

• Ten+ years leading brand or corporate marketing.
• Proven strategy experience with the CEO and executive teams.
• Experience in high-growth software or AI companies.
• Ability to build thought leadership programs and partnerships.
• Experience managing both agencies and in-house teams.

Responsibilities

• Own brand strategy end to end: positioning, messaging, voice, and visuals.
• Define ideas to build brand authority and executive voice framework.
• Lead PR and communications strategy and agency management.
• Design Tier 1 experiences for senior buyers and events.
• Turn customers into proof with case studies and stories across formats.
• Track brand awareness, influence on pipeline, and budget governance.
• Build and lead the marketing team, balancing in-house vs. external resources.

Skills

Brand leadership

Content marketing

Executive collaboration

Thought leadership

AI branding

Job description

About Valence

Valence has built the talent transformation & intelligence engine powered by Nadia for enterprise, offering personalized, expert, and human-like guidance and support to any leader or employee. We’re not just talking about the future of work — we’re building it now, with the most innovative Fortune 500 companies across healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and technology.

Learn more about our work with Microsoft: Valence Brings AI Coaching More Deeply Into the Flow of Work with Microsoft 365

Our focus is on the problems that actually decide whether AI changes how organizations operate — the ones with no playbook, no obvious answers, and no guarantee of success. If you want to be part of the small group that defines how AI transforms the future at a global scale, this is your chance.

And this isn’t for everyone. We’re not looking for people who want predictability or incremental progress. We only want those who are restless at the edge of what’s possible, who get bored when things feel “done,” and who are driven to redefine what AI can mean for leaders, companies, and the world. Because at Valence, the work worth doing is the kind that redefines work itself.

The role

Most companies still develop their employees the way they did twenty years ago: a course, a workshop, an annual review. Valence, with its talent transformation & intelligence engine powered by Nadia, is changing that. An AI coach that works alongside managers and employees inside Fortune 500 companies in the moment they need it, Nadia is a new way to develop and manage talent.

You’ll own how Valence and Nadia are understood, remembered, and chosen by enterprise leaders: brand strategy and activation, content and thought leadership, research, PR and communications, and the Tier 1 experiences that bring the brand to life in person.

You’ll inherit real raw material, including a new brand narrative, relationships with leading AI and Future of Work thought leaders, a customer base that wants to advocate for us, and an executive team that is at the strategic frontier of AI + Talent. Your job is to turn those assets into one coherent system that earns brand trust by leading the conversation on how AI is changing work. You’ll report directly to our VP of Marketing and work directly with our CEO and the GMs of our US and EMEA businesses to shape our brand presence globally.

This is a leadership role on a lean marketing team operating at startup velocity, and the team is yours to build. You’ll manage a content strategist and an events lead from day one, run our brand design and PR agency relationships with the option to bring brand design in house, and grow the function as the business earns it. We work from first principles here: expect to be asked “why?” often, and to enjoy answering it.

What you’ll do

• Own brand strategy end to end: positioning, messaging architecture, voice, and visual identity. Settle with leadership how Valence and Nadia relate as brands, take the narrative our agency delivers in January and build the system it lands in, with guidelines and decision rights that keep a small team and outside partners on brand without you in every review

• Earn authority on how work and management are changing: define the handful of ideas we want to be known for, build our research initiative into a thought leadership program, earn credibility alongside partners like Microsoft, and define and build our executive voice framework

• Lead PR and communications: set the strategy, select and manage the agency, shape its scope to what we need rather than a standard package, and build the muscle to act on inbound moments like national press quickly and well

• Design the Tier 1 experiences that build our brand with senior buyers, from a conference presence to a closed‑door dinner with a dozen CHROs, partnering with our events lead on execution (field marketing and demand generation events stay with the revenue team)

• Turn customers into proof: partner with the Executive Engagement and Customer Advocacy lead to produce case studies, user‑level stories, across multiple media and formats

• Make brand a measured growth lever: establish how we track awareness and consideration among target buyers; show brand's influence on pipeline; own the brand budget and agency ecosystem; and balance bets across brand, pipeline‑adjacent content, and experiences

• Build and lead the team: help set the standard for and elevate work across all of the capabilities within the team; judge when to add in‑house capability vs. freelancers or agencies; guide and inspire a creative team to do exceptional work

What we’re looking for

• 10+ years in content, brand, or communications, with senior leadership experience at a high‑growth software company

• You’ve led a multidisciplinary brand or corporate marketing function and can show what the system looked like before and after you: the strategy, the operating model, the team, and the results

• You’ve worked directly with a CEO and executive team and can hold your own in a first‑principles conversation about why a bet is worth making; you know the difference between content that is interesting and content that changes how a CHRO or CEO thinks, and can earn the trust of senior buyers without having sold to them before

• You’ve built thought leadership that earned real authority on a topic like the future of work, or have a clear view on how to, including original research, institutional partnerships, and executive voice programs

• You’ve owned or helped shape a communications strategy and managed agencies through it, or have a clear view on how to: selecting them, shaping scope, holding them to outcomes, and knowing when to act without them

• Startup or high‑growth company experience: comfortable building a function with limited infrastructure and shifting priorities. You are expert in creating a way forward through ambiguity.

• A drive for excellence: You take full ownership of outcomes. You feel deeply responsible for results. If something’s off, you roll up your sleeves and fix it, even if it’s not “your job.” You challenge yourself to extraordinary growth and believe that frequent feedback is the fastest lever for getting better.

• You operate above pace: You operate with speed and conviction. You don’t wait for perfect certainty. You choose a path, test it fast, and let results guide the next move.

• You take bold bets: You lead with curiosity and not ego. You care more about strong ideas than being right. You listen well, challenge directly, and commit fully even when the decision isn’t yours.

• AI‑native: you’ve built AI into your daily workflow and can point to specific things you’ve automated, accelerated, or improved with it in the last six months. This matters more than usual at a company whose product is an AI coach.

What you’ll get

Ownership & Rapid Growth

• Outsized missions from day one, with direct responsibility for company-defining projects

• Work alongside the executive team with transparency into strategy and decision‑making

• Influence on direction through real‑time customer feedback and market insights

AI-First Operator

• Work directly with cutting‑edge AI models and next‑generation platforms

• Build expertise in enterprise AI implementation across Fortune 500 companies and multiple industries

• Establish yourself as a recognized leader among peers in shaping how AI transforms work at a global scale

Compensation

• Competitive salary including base + bonuses

• Comprehensive health coverage (medical, dental, vision) from day one

• Generous PTO, company‑wide R&R shutdowns, and paid parental leave

• Retirement plan support for US and global employees

Equity

• Meaningful ownership in a venture‑backed company at a growth inflection point

• Financial upside that comes from scaling fast

• Top‑up grants as we scale and you deliver exceptional performance — your compensation grows alongside your impact

Top‑Performing Culture

• A culture built for top talent: intensity to win, growth without limits, and a team that solves hard problems and celebrates big wins together

Learn more about us and meet our team here

Valence takes candidate fraud seriously. We verify identity, LinkedIn profiles, employment history, and references; any misrepresentation during the hiring process is grounds for withdrawing an offer or ending employment. All offers are contingent on successful completion of these checks.