Senior Level Director of Development and Community Relations Jobs

INTRODUCTION

The application window is expected to close on: 11/30/2026
Remote United States

Meet the Team

Global Communications is a team of more than 150 best-in-class communications professionals. Our mission is to protect and improve Cisco's reputation through innovative and thought-provoking storytelling, execution excellence and transparency. The PR team is responsible for leading Cisco's corporate and technology PR programs, as well as crafting and delivering clear and compelling narratives that grab the attention of media and influencers.

Your Impact

As a PR Manager for Cisco’s networking portfolio, you will shape the narrative around Cisco’s networking reinvention in the AI era. You’ll operate at the center of our business, translating product innovations into high-impact stories that resonate with enterprise leaders and practitioner audiences, including network architects, engineers, and IT/OT teams. This role represents an opportunity to tell high-impact stories and connect the dots between networking infrastructure and customer outcomes that define the AI era.

In this role, you will own communications programs within our campus & branch and industrial networking portfolio, acting as a trusted advisor to business leadership. You’ll lead product announcements, work with our customers and partners to tell impactful stories, draft compelling messaging and other high-impact communications content, and work with media and influencers to advance Cisco’s narrative around Cisco’s enterprise connectivity platform. You’ll bridge the gap between technical product capabilities and the broader market shifts, ensuring Cisco’s networking story is consistent, compelling, and ahead of the competitive curve.

Key Responsibilities

• Storytelling & Discovery: Lead the development of comprehensive storytelling strategies that unify product launches, customer success stories, and thought leadership. You will proactively identify market opportunities to position Cisco’s networking portfolio as the backbone of the AI era. Working with product and engineering teams, customers, and practitioners, you’ll translate technical roadmaps, architectures, workflows, and operational trade-offs into credible stories that connect to customer outcomes for business leaders and practitioner audiences.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Management: Serve as the primary communications partner to senior networking leadership, providing strategic counsel on messaging, reputation, and global alignment. You will manage competing priorities across a matrixed environment, ensuring that PR goals are integrated with business, marketing, and analyst relations objectives.

• Media Relations: Nurture high-level relationships with key technology and business media to drive consistent, high-impact coverage. Serve as a trusted advisor to our spokespeople, coaching them on narrative delivery and ensuring our messaging remains sharp, influential, and aligned with market trends.

• Strategic Counsel: Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to product, product marketing, and executive leadership. Bring external market perspective (competitive moves, media sentiment, industry trends) to internal decision-making.

• Campaign Management: Own end-to-end campaign execution for launches and strategic initiatives—from strategy through measurement. Manage timelines, agency relationships, and multi-channel delivery, leveraging AI tools and automation to accelerate workflows without sacrificing editorial rigor. Lead coordination with other communications functions, including analyst relations, employee communications and digital communications.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• 8+ years of experience in public relations, with a proven track record in enterprise technology communications.
• Demonstrated technical fluency in enterprise networking and AI, with the ability to engage credibly on areas such as campus and branch, wireless, routing and switching, security, and industrial networking.
• Proven ability to reach and earn trust with practitioner audiences through relevant technology media, technical content, customer stories, events, or practitioner communities.
• Demonstrated experience to act as a strategic advisor to senior leadership, influencing decision-making through market intelligence and communication strategy.
• Exceptional writing and editorial skills; ability to craft compelling bylines, reports, and messaging frameworks that capture market attention.
• Track record of building relationships with media and influencers; demonstrated ability to secure coverage in relevant publications.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills—proven ability to work effectively with product, marketing and executive teams; skilled at managing up, across, and down in matrixed environments.
• Self-starter mentality—bias toward discovery and action; ability to identify storytelling opportunities and refine narrative direction with minimal direction.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate cross-functional tensions and resolve complex communication challenges within a large, matrixed organization.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Proven experience in managing agency relationships and driving cross-functional alignment across marketing, analyst relations, and employee communications.
• Deep familiarity with the networking landscape, including trends like intent-based networking, security, and AI-powered operations.
• Strong use of AI in day-to-day operations with a hunger to always be learning more; early-adopter mentality.

Why Cisco?

At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.

Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.

We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $165,200.00 to $210,600.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.

Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees are offered benefits, subject to Cisco’s plan eligibility rules, which include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks. Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.

U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco’s policies:

• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
• 1 paid day off for employee’s birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco
• Non-exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees
• Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations)
• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, and up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next
• Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer

For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

• .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;
• 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;
• 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and
• Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:

$165,200.00 - $240,900.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$145,200.00 - $211,700.00

• For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.