Communications and Corporate Affairs Director

Communications and Corporate Affairs Director

Job Purpose

Reporting to the Global Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs, the Communications and Corporate Affairs Director leads the development, implementation and coordination of communications strategy across assigned regions. The role builds and protects ACI Worldwide’s reputation with the audiences who shape growth in these markets: customers, media, industry and investor analysts, regulators, policymakers and opinion leaders.

Earned media is the primary outcome of this role. Coverage in the publications that ACI customers and prospects actually read, driven by journalist relationships this role builds and holds, is what the position is expected to produce. Distribution and social channels support that work rather than substitute for it.

Crisis capability is the second requirement. Payments infrastructure runs continuously, and ACI customers are banks, billers and merchants operating under regulation across a wide span of time zones. This role is the regional communications lead within ACI’s global crisis and incident response framework, working alongside the global team, Legal, Security and the account teams under pressure and on short clocks.

The successful candidate is a leader with a bias to action who works effectively across a complex, matrixed organization. They are a trusted advisor to regional leadership, comfortable in front of senior executives and comfortable saying what they think. They write fast and well, they are current on how communications work is produced today, including the use of AI, and they exercise judgment about when a tool is not a finished product.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

Earned Media and Press Relations

• Lead ACI’s earned media program across assigned regions, building and maintaining direct relationships with the payments, banking, fintech, technology and business journalists covering priority markets.
• Secure coverage in priority outlets, delivering against agreed targets for placement quality, message pull-through, interviews and feature opportunities, and reporting against them.
• Build a media plan for every external announcement before distribution, with a defined story angle and a named target list; distribution is the start of the process, not the end of it.
• Direct regional agencies with a complete brief: priority targets, the story, suggested pitches, quotes and proof points that did not make the release.
• Maintain regular in-person engagement with journalists, executives and priority industry events in assigned regions.
• Source, secure and prepare spokespeople for interviews, panels, podcasts and bylines.

Crisis and Issues Communications

• Serve as the regional communications lead within ACI’s global crisis and incident response framework, covering service incidents, security matters, regulatory inquiries and materially or reputationally significant customer escalations.
• Maintain regional crisis materials, escalation paths and spokesperson readiness, and keep them current rather than dormant.
• Work with Legal, Security, Product and the account teams to establish facts before language is drafted; security and vulnerability communications follow CISO, Legal and incident governance approval, market-sensitive matters involve Investor Relations and Legal, and regulatory outreach goes through approved Legal, compliance and public affairs channels.
• Operate within an agreed regional coverage and escalation model, with clean handoffs to colleagues in other regions; any formal out-of-hours expectations are set under local employment terms.

Corporate and Executive Communications

• Develop a regional narrative and message strategy that reinforces ACI’s reputation and reflects what ACI businesses deliver to customers in these markets.
• Provide counsel and support to regional leadership and senior executives, including media training, briefing, message development and platform building.
• Lead communications for regional priorities and assigned business segments, coordinating with global and local leaders on execution.
• Support the global industry analyst relations program in region and manage regional opinion leader engagement, in partnership with the global Analyst Relations lead and with product and business segment leads.
• Partner with Investor Relations on regional matters carrying market sensitivity.
• Support regulatory and public affairs engagement in region through approved channels, including relationships with industry bodies, payment schemes and trade associations.

Writing, AI and Digital

• Write and edit to a publishable standard: press releases, pitches, bylines, executive commentary, talking points and customer-facing language.
• Use ACI-approved AI tools for research, market and media intelligence, background analysis, drafting and editing.
• Verify independently; facts, quotations, statistics, source attribution and journalist contacts are confirmed against primary sources or a licensed media database before use, and AI-generated media lists are not used without verification.
• Protect confidential, customer, employee and material nonpublic information; restricted material does not go into external tools.
• Own the output; the employee is accountable for every final deliverable regardless of how it was produced, and all final work meets ACI editorial, approval, brand, copyright and licensing standards.
• Ensure translated material receives qualified native-speaker review before publication; machine translation is never publication ready.
• Work with the global digital team to amplify earned coverage and executive appearances.

Regional Coverage Model

• Own a tiered regional strategy across agreed priority markets, set on business presence, customer base, risk and growth priorities.
• Build coverage beyond a home market through direct relationships, agency networks and local partners.
• Demonstrate a credible plan for extending reach across assigned regions; depth in a single market, however strong, is not sufficient on its own.

Scope Boundaries

• Uses conferences and trade shows to secure interviews and build press relationships; does not own event planning or production.
• Works with the global digital team on amplification; does not own the regional editorial calendar or routine social production.
• Partners with the global owners of Analyst Relations, Investor Relations and Public Affairs rather than running parallel regional functions.
• Operates within ACI’s established ownership and approval frameworks for incident facts, disclosure and regulatory contact.

Agencies, Budget and Operating

• Manage agencies, freelancers and vendors in region, including scope, budget and performance.
• Manage the regional communications budget and report against plan.
• Evaluate and report on program performance in partnership with Corporate, Product and Field Marketing.
• Understand and adhere to all corporate policies, including the ACI Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 10 or more years of relevant communications experience, in-house, agency or both, including leadership of multi-market or regional programs.
• Demonstrated media relations results, evidenced by the markets and categories of outlets covered, coverage the candidate led or directly secured, and a clear approach to building and sustaining journalist relationships.
• B2B communications, with a track record of placing a complex enterprise story with business and trade press rather than consumer media.
• Enterprise software communications, including product and platform announcements, technical positioning, and working directly with product and engineering teams.
• Crisis and issues management experience, evidenced by anonymized examples involving customers, regulators or security.
• Senior executive communications, including counseling and preparing leaders for media and public engagement.
• Corporate PR, including announcements, reputation programs and message development.
• Industry analyst relations and opinion leader engagement.
• Digital and social media.
• Demonstrated responsible use of AI tools for research, analysis and drafting, including verification discipline and confidentiality judgment; candidates should be prepared to describe how they use, or would use, these tools responsibly.
• International experience, with a proven ability to work effectively across multiple countries and cultures.
• Payments, banking, financial infrastructure, fintech or regulated enterprise technology knowledge, including the systems that route and process payments.
• Working knowledge of the payments media landscape in region: who covers payments, banking technology and fintech, what they write about, and what they will and will not take.
• Working proficiency with media intelligence, monitoring, collaboration and project management platforms (Muck Rack or equivalent) and Microsoft 365.
• English fluency required; additional languages relevant to the assigned regions are considered a strong advantage.
• Experience managing localization and professional translation across multiple markets.

Competencies

• Complex stakeholder management; able to listen, understand and operate across multiple agendas with different internal and external stakeholders.
• Self-starter; sets the regional agenda and executes it at a distance from headquarters rather than waiting for direction.
• Media savvy and relentless about coverage; reads what a journalist actually needs, makes the case for the interview, and finds another route when the first pitch does not land.
• Resilient; works through rejection, cancelled interviews, difficult coverage and quiet news periods without losing momentum.
• Adapts global media plans to the region; takes a plan built for another market and rebuilds the angle, the targets and the timing so it lands locally.
• Judgment under pressure; calm, clear and accurate when the clock is short and the facts are incomplete.
• Cultural and regulatory judgment; recognizes when a global message is incomplete or inappropriate for a local market, and says so.
• Organization-wide approach to delivering results, skilled at working across both global and functional boundaries.
• Strategic and creative, with excellent verbal and written communication skills; meticulous and driven, able to produce publishable material and work across cross-functional areas of the business.

Preferred Qualifications

• MBA, or a master’s degree in Communications, Journalism or a related field.
• Experience supporting communications for a publicly listed company, a regulated financial institution or a critical infrastructure provider.
• Prior experience at a payments, banking or financial technology company, or at an agency serving that sector.
• Experience supporting communications in more than one of the markets covered by this role.

Work Environment

• Standard work environment.
• Regional travel required, approximately 25 percent.
• Office model and local work environment terms to be confirmed by HR for the hiring location.
• Majority of time spent on PC.
• Air travel and multi-day trips across time zones.