Head of Brand and Editorial
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Palo Alto, CA
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- C level
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 15+ years
- Category
- Not specified
- Posted
Must have
- Bachelor's degree or advanced degree in a field you have applied to marketing and communications.
- 15+ years of experience in communications, brand, marketing, and/or editorial roles, including significant experience leading and developing teams and managing other managers.
- A track record of setting communications or brand strategy for a technically sophisticated organization in fields such as AI, computing, biotechnology, life sciences, or other deep technical domains,
- Demonstrated success partnering with founders, executives, and/or researchers
- Exceptional writing and editorial judgment, with the ability to elevate the writing of others.
- Proven ability to operate strategically while remaining hands-on in the work; comfort in a fast-paced, rapidly scaling organization.
Nice to have
- Previous work at frontier AI labs, technology startups, biotech, life sciences, or academic/research institutions.
- Experience managing relationships with media at the national and trade level.
- Familiarity with scientific publishing and the norms of academic communication.
Full description
About Arc Institute
Arc Institute is an independent nonprofit research organization at the interface of artificial intelligence and biology, working to accelerate scientific progress and understand the root causes of complex diseases. Founded in 2021 and based in Palo Alto, Arc partners with Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and UC San Francisco.
Unlike academia, our scientists have long-term funding and industry-like resources. Unlike industry, they're free to pursue high-risk, long-term research without commercial pressures. Arc's Technology Centers and Core Investigator labs work side by side, integrating experimental and computational biology under one roof to tackle problems neither could solve alone.
Our two Institute Initiatives reflect this model in action:
- Virtual Cell Initiative: Building a full-stack virtual cell model to identify disease mechanisms and nominate drug targets, accelerating the path from biological insight to clinical trials.
- Alzheimer's Disease Initiative: Mapping the genes, pathways, and environmental factors behind Alzheimer's disease to develop drug candidates that address root causes.
More than 300 Arconauts work together at our Palo Alto headquarters, backed by substantial long-term philanthropic funding.
About the position
Arc Institute is seeking a leader to own our storytelling for our next stage. The Head of Brand and Editorial will unify our brand, communications, and editorial work. You will set the creative and strategic vision for how Arc speaks to the world, partner directly with our founders and other leaders to shape our communications strategy, and lead the teams that bring it to life every day. This is a player-coach role for someone who operates comfortably on both strategy and execution.
About you
- You are a storyteller with exceptional taste. You have strong, well-developed opinions about what great looks like in writing, design, and brand, and you can articulate why. People seek out your judgment.
- You have spent your career in deeply technical work. You have partnered with experts to help them share their knowledge with the world. A background in science is not required, but you must have engaged with complex technical topics.
- You are skilled at working with brilliant, opinionated people. You can extract a clear creative brief from ambiguous or reactive feedback, earn trust quickly, and push back with credibility when needed.
In this position you will
- Own and articulate the vision for Arc's story as a new model for scientific institutions and as a producer of meaningful research, and ensure that vision is expressed consistently across every surface: media, web, brand, publications, and internal communications.