Executive Director, Brand Strategy, Storytelling & Communications, Athletics

Overview

In this role you will lead the brand strategy, storytelling, and communications for Miami Athletics under the CMO, owning the day-to-day brand narrative across all varsity sports. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to ensure a cohesive, social-first strategy that elevates fan engagement and partner value while maintaining brand integrity. You'll shape in-game experiences and external storytelling, translating university priorities into impactful campaigns. This is a strategic leadership role that combines marketing, creative storytelling, and media fluency to advance the athletics brand.

Responsibilities

• Direct and grow the Athletics PR, media relations and communications team, owning day-to-day function across all varsity sports
• Coordinate cross-functional alignment with social, digital, ticket sales, NIL, and sponsorships/partnerships to ensure brand, storytelling and communications priorities
• Ensure a coherent, unified comms and brand strategy across channels
• Oversee end-to-end communications across all varsity sports, including media relations and public-facing narrative
• Build and maintain relationships with trade publications and sports media to represent the program credibly
• Develop fluency in the college sports media landscape and how coverage and narratives move
• Set overarching brand and storytelling strategy across all varsity sports and champion a social-first storytelling approach
• Provide brand leadership for in-game fan experiences and activations, aligning with other Athletics teams
• Partner with NIL, sponsorships/partnerships, and ticket sales/marketing to strengthen fan engagement without compromising brand integrity
• Act as the brand steward across all marketing outputs and fan experiences to ensure consistency and quality across channels
• Translate CMO priorities into executable strategy and keep leadership informed on media landscape shifts and performance
• Collaborate with CRO and cross-functional planning to align Athletics priorities with brand and comms strategy

Key requirements

• Bachelor's degree
• Minimum 5 years of relevant work experience
• Marketing background with brand, creative, and storytelling instincts
• Experience in college athletics or high-visibility sports/entertainment environment
• Strong understanding of the sports media ecosystem
• Strategic leadership experience (team building and directing strategy)
• Strong creative instincts with ability to elevate storytelling and brand partnerships

• leadership
• cross-functional collaboration
• strategic thinking
• media relations
• brand strategy
• storytelling