Communications Manager (Outreach & Strategy)

Communications Manager (Outreach & Strategy)

Call for Applications

Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada

Location: Vancouver, B.C. (hybrid – 2 days per week in office)

• Terms: Full-time, one-year fixed-term contract, with the possibility of renewal
• Salary range: $80,00 – $85,000 per year (plus generous benefits package), commensurate with experience
• Application deadline: November 2, 2026, 11:59 p.m. PT; applications will be considered on a rolling basis

About APF Canada

The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada is Canada’s only national public-purpose institution dedicated exclusively to Canada-Asia engagement. Our vision is a prosperous, secure Canada shaping its future through high-impact engagement with Asia, and our mission is to enable Canadians to understand, connect with, and succeed in Asia.

Through trusted insights, high-level convening, talent development, and building sustained partnerships, we enable more effective, durable, and impactful Canadian engagement across the Indo-Pacific.

About the Role

Are you a creative, energetic, and innovative communications strategist? Do you welcome the challenge of building interest and engagement in a leading Canadian think-tank and its world-changing research, programs, and projects?

The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APFC) is looking for a full-time Communications Manager (Outreach & Strategy) on a fixed one-year contract. You will help us better leverage our current communications channels, audiences, and activities in the implementation of a forward-looking communications strategy that will enhance engagement with our research and programming outputs, events, networks, and projects while building brand awareness for APF Canada in Canada and globally, in alignment with APF Canada’s Five-Year Strategic Framework.

The role is equal parts strategy and hands-on delivery. Alongside the strategic work, you will support the communications team day-to-day across our websites, publications, newsletters, events, and networks, with a particular focus on proactive media outreach to domestic and international media and on the curation of a daily internal media communications brief that keeps our senior staff and program managers informed of news, issues, and events at the intersections of APF Canada’s work.

We are looking for an exceptional communicator with a proven track record of implementing innovative communications strategies that embrace new technologies and platforms to maximize and track audience outreach and impact across channels. You will report to the Director of Communications and work closely with colleagues in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Singapore.

Key Responsibilities

The role has two streams of work that run in parallel: reviewing, refining, and implementing APFC’s communications strategy and delivering against it day-to-day.

Communications strategy review and planning

Lead a light, practical review of APFC’s standing communications strategy and activities to improve the reach, discoverability, and effectiveness of communications supporting our research outputs, programs, events, and network activities, and improve efficiency through better processes, sharper measurement, and appropriate use of digital and AI tools.

You will:

Audiences and objectives: confirm priority audiences and desired outcomes (awareness, engagement, event registrations/attendance, media pickup, stakeholder reach).

Owned channels and distribution: assess the overall effectiveness of our newsletters, social media channels, and multimedia production and distribution, and recommend what to stop, start, and continue.

Content packaging and discoverability: recommend and implement improvements to content presentation, titles, summaries, metadata, SEO, PDF best practices, accessibility considerations, and reuse/syndication.

Measurement: recommend and implement improvements to existing KPIs, reporting cadence, and the practicality of tracking (e.g. GA4, email metrics, current platform insights).

AI and digital tools: identify three-to-six high-value, low-risk automation opportunities (e.g. repackaging, tagging, audience segmentation for targeted outreach, transcription, summaries), with human oversight and clear guardrails.

Your main deliverable:

A prioritized 12-month implementation plan for APF Canada’s targeted, focused communications strategy that assists APFC in delivering on its mission, building a more influential brand, and increasing its impact and reach in alignment with APFC's Five-Year Strategic Framework.

90-day quick wins (immediately actionable, low or no cost)

A 12-month roadmap of prioritized initiatives with:

clear objectives and success metrics

owners/roles and effort level (low/medium/high)

dependencies and risks

recommended tools and process changes (practical, minimal)

estimated cost ranges (for additional platforms or technology)

Working sessions with the communications, research, and programming teams to validate priorities and implementation approach

Media outreach, content operations, and measurement

Provide ongoing senior-level support to APF Canada's communications team; identify immediate opportunities for our experts to engage proactively with regional, national, and Asia-based media to amplify APF Canada as a recognized thought leader on Canada-Asia engagement; develop a structured, multi-asset production workflow to systematically maximize the reach and impact of every major APFC research output and event; implement improvements to our media tracking/listening ; and manage our editorial production calendar within a project management platform.

You will:

Drive proactive outreach to domestic and international medi a, pitching APF Canada’s experts to journalists and editors in Canada and across the Indo-Pacific.

Refine our media database and implement improvements to our media tracking and listening

Manage and maintain our daily internal communications media brief for senior staff and program managers.

Assist in the development of a lean “must-track” KPI framework – drawing our currently disaggregated monitoring tools into one view of reach, usefulness, and influence across website, media (including inbound requests), and social media – with a recommended reporting cadence.

Build a content multiplier workflow : the systematic, scheduled production of secondary assets (summaries, social posts, podcasts, video shorts) for every major output.

Help implement and integrate a project management platform across the organization, including the Central Canada Office in Toronto, the Montreal Office, and the Asia Regional Office in Singapore, and recommend improvements to intra-organizational collaboration.

Help manage the editorial calendar within that project management platform.

Maintain a lightweight templates toolkit : editorial calendar, a distribution checklist for research and programming outputs, an event communications and asset production checklist, and weekly, monthly, and quarterly reporting templates.

What You Bring

5-to-10 years of progressively senior communications experience, ideally in a think-tank, research institute, university, government, or non-profit setting.

Demonstrated experience with digital communications, content strategy, social media, multimedia, and implementing AI/digital tools ethically.

A demonstrated record of placing stories, op-eds, and expert commentary with national or international media, and of building durable relationships with journalists and editors.

Hands-on fluency with digital analytics and reporting (GA4, email platform metrics, social insights), and the ability to turn data into decisions rather than just dashboards.

Experience running an editorial or content calendar in a project management platform (e.g. Asana, Monday.com, ClickUp).

Practical, responsible experience applying AI tools (e.g. Claude) to communications work, with a clear grasp of where the