CIO Communications & Operations Lead

Job Description

Lead communications for the CIO organization and serve as a high-trust executive partner to the VP, CIO Strategy, Operations & Architecture. This role turns CIO strategy, decisions, and change into clear, coordinated communication and action across the full organization. It combines communications leadership with staff management capabilities, senior executive administration, and change management. The role uses AI and automation responsibly to improve the quality, speed, coordination, and reach of the work.

The position supports the CIO and CIO leadership team across functions, geographies, and levels. It brings structure to executive priorities and operating rhythms while enabling leaders to communicate consistently and teams to understand what is changing, why it matters, and what to do next.

What you’ll do

CIO communications leadership

• Own the CIO-wide communications strategy, calendar, narrative, and editorial standards, connecting messages to company direction, CIO priorities, business outcomes, and customer impact.

• Advise the VP and CIO leadership team on audience, message, timing, channel, sequencing, and risks for sensitive or high-impact communications.

• Draft, edit, and coordinate executive-ready communications, including leadership messages, all-hands content, announcements, FAQs, talking points, presentations, meeting pre-reads, and follow-ups.

• Translate complex technical, operational, workforce, and portfolio topics into clear, accurate messages for technical and nontechnical audiences.

• Coordinate communications across CIO functions so teams receive timely, consistent information, with clear owners and actions.

• Maintain a forward-looking communications calendar and intake process; surface collisions, gaps, dependencies, and opportunities to reinforce key messages.

• Gather feedback and engagement signals, assess whether communications are understood, and adjust content and channels based on evidence.

Executive operations

• Act as a trusted delegate and thought partner to the VP, CIO Strategy, Operations & Architecture, helping translate priorities into decisions, plans, and follow-through across the CIO organization.

• Prepare the CIO leaders for key engagements with concise briefs, decision points, stakeholder context, meeting objectives, and follow-up actions.

• Orchestrate executive operating rhythms, including CIO staff and leadership meetings, all-hands, AMAs, quarterly business reviews, offsites, and other leadership forums.

• Develop agendas with clear outcomes; coordinate pre-reads; capture decisions, owners, and due dates; and track follow-through without adding unnecessary process.

• Identify cross-functional dependencies, unresolved decisions, and emerging risks; bring forward concise options and recommendations.

• Partner with executive assistants and operations leads across CIO to coordinate schedules, materials, logistics, and handoffs for high-priority engagements.

• Handle sensitive information with discretion and use sound judgment about what to escalate, share, or resolve independently.

• Maintain organized executive materials, contact and stakeholder context, decision records, and action tracking so information is easy to find and reuse.

• Coordinate with administrative partners and leaders to ensure consistent, reliable support across the CIO organization.

Change management and organizational enablement

• Lead change planning for CIO-wide and cross-functional initiatives, including stakeholder mapping, impact and readiness assessments, change narratives, engagement plans, and adoption measures.

• Connect communications to practical enablement: explain what is changing, who is affected, when it happens, where to get help, and what action is expected.

• Coach leaders and change owners on sponsorship, sequencing, team conversations, and handling questions or resistance.

• Track change dependencies, risks, readiness, adoption, and feedback across concurrent initiatives; recommend timely course corrections.

• Coordinate with People & Places, Finance, business partners, and other functions when changes cross organizational boundaries.

AI-enabled coordination and productivity

• Use approved AI tools to accelerate research, synthesis, drafting, meeting preparation, action tracking, translation support, and tailored content development while preserving human judgment and accountability.

• Build repeatable AI-assisted workflows that help coordinate communications, surface dependencies, summarize feedback, and maintain reliable follow-through across CIO.

• Verify AI-generated facts, tone, confidentiality, and audience fit before use; protect sensitive information and follow company policies and data-handling requirements.

• Identify opportunities to reduce manual administrative work through automation, and measure improvements in quality, cycle time, reach, or capacity.

Communications as a service

• Partner with CIO program sponsors, program managers, and functional leaders to shape and deliver communications for priority initiatives, from early planning through launch and sustained adoption.

• Join program teams at key points to clarify the outcome to achieve, audiences affected, decisions or behaviors needed, and how communications can remove barriers to execution.

• Consult on or directly develop audience-specific plans and materials—such as stakeholder maps, leader talking points, team updates, FAQs, milestones, launch messages, and feedback channels—coordinated with the program plan and delivery cadence.

• Coordinate communications across related workstreams so dependencies, sequencing, ownership, and calls to action are clear and consistent across the CIO organization.

• Monitor engagement, understanding, readiness, and adoption signals with program teams; use feedback and delivery data to adjust communications and help keep work on track toward its goals.

What you bring

• Significant experience in executive communications, strategic communications, change communications, or a related discipline; experience supporting senior executives in a complex technology organization is strongly preferred.

• Demonstrated ability to write and edit clear, concise, high-quality executive communications in English at a native or equivalent professional level, including nuanced, audience-sensitive material.

• Experience advising senior leaders and translating strategy, technical subjects, and organizational change into actionable messages.

• Strong executive presence, discretion, judgment, and ability to build trust across levels, functions, and geographies.

• Experience with executive meeting cadence, agenda and pre-read development, decision and action tracking, and complex calendar or event coordination.

• Practical change management experience, including impact assessment, stakeholder engagement, readiness, adoption, and feedback measurement.

• Excellent organization and project coordination skills; ability to manage multiple concurrent priorities while maintaining accuracy and dependable follow-through.

• Demonstrated fluency with AI tools and automation, including the ability to design useful workflows and validate their outputs responsibly.

• Comfort working with ambiguity, shifting priorities, sensitive topics, and a global, distributed workforce.

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience in communications, business, organizational change, or a related field.

• Spanish is an advantage. The role requires English communication skills at a native or equivalent professional level.

Location and working model

The role works across the full CIO organization and global time zones; flexibility for occasional early or late meetings is expected. Eligibility and willingness to travel to US and other worldwide locations, with an estimate of 10-15%.

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.

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