EVP Chief External Affairs Officer

How would you like to work in a place where your contributions and ideas are valued? A place where you can serve with compassion, pursue excellence and honor every voice? At Wellstar, our mission is simple, yet powerful: to enhance the health and well-being of every person we serve. We are proud to have become a shining example of what's possible when the brightest professionals dedicate themselves to making a difference in the healthcare industry, and in people's lives.

Work Shift

Job Summary:

The Chief External Affairs Officer (CEAO) will lead all elements of an internally and externally facing communications strategy, driving recognition of organizational impact and stakeholder engagement across the enterprise. The central focus of the role is to protect, advance, and strengthen the health system's brand and reputation by assertively managing strategic initiatives and issues with all key stakeholders. The CEAO reports directly to the CEO, serves on the Executive Team, and leads a team comprising Marketing/Brand and Communications, Community and Government Relations. The CEAO will lead initiatives that build and execute the organization's brand, strengthen marketing and communications, foster strategic partnerships, and expand relationships with policymakers, industry and business leaders, and other key influencers.
As Wellstar enters a period of significant growth and market expansion, the CEAO will play a critical role in shaping how the organization is perceived regionally and nationally. While the health system is recognized for strong clinical quality and outcomes, there is substantial opportunity to elevate and differentiate the Wellstar brand in an increasingly competitive landscape. The CEAO will develop and articulate a clear strategic positioning for the organization, ensuring consistent, compelling storytelling across diverse audiences including patients, team members, physicians, donors, community partners, and government stakeholders. This leader will align messaging and engagement strategies across markets, supporting geographic expansion, acquisitions, and partnerships with a unified and forward-looking narrative.
The development of a comprehensive strategic positioning vision, followed by effective advancement of marketing efforts and relationship-building with government and community stakeholders, will be key success factors for the role. The CEAO will assess and strengthen existing capabilities, building a more cohesive, integrated external affairs function that reduces silos and enhances enterprise coordination. By creating a best-in-class external affairs department that brings together four work areas and blends initiatives and cross-functional projects, the CEAO will ensure that Wellstar operates with a coordinated, proactive, and strategic external presence that advances long-term growth and mission impact.
Core Responsibilities and Essential Functions:
•Strategic Leadership: Serve as the enterprise architect of Wellstar’s external affairs strategy, aligning marketing, communications, government relations, and community engagement into a cohesive, high-performing function. Partner closely with the CEO and Executive Team to define and articulate Wellstar’s strategic positioning as the system enters a period of significant growth and expansion. Assess current structure, talent, agency reliance, and capabilities, and build an integrated, best-in-class platform that supports brand differentiation, geographic growth, reputation management, and stakeholder trust. Establish clear priorities, performance expectations, and cross-functional coordination across a large and distributed team, ensuring alignment between system-level strategy and market-level execution.
•Marketing/Brand: Lead the development and execution of a bold, enterprise-wide brand and marketing strategy that elevates Wellstar’s presence regionally and nationally. Build a sophisticated brand management framework that serves as the foundation for advertising, digital strategy, service line promotion, growth initiatives, and market entry efforts. Strengthen the organization’s external voice, ensuring Wellstar is assertive and differentiated in an increasingly competitive landscape. Modernize marketing capabilities, enhance data-driven targeting and measurement, and reduce over-reliance on external agencies by building stronger internal expertise. Ensure consistent brand expression across hospitals, markets, and newly integrated entities.
•Communications: Rebuild and elevate the communications function to support a proactive, externally focused narrative that reflects Wellstar’s clinical excellence, innovation, and community impact. Oversee media relations, executive communications, crisis and issues management, and system-wide messaging to diverse audiences including patients, physicians, team members, donors, policymakers, and partners. Shift the communications orientation from primarily internal culture engagement to a balanced model that strengthens external reputation and influence. Develop integrated storytelling that harmonizes enterprise priorities with local market realities, ensuring clarity, consistency, and credibility across all channels.
•Government and Community Relations: Provide strategic oversight and coordination of government and community relations efforts, partnering closely with the Vice President of Government Relations and market leaders to ensure alignment with enterprise priorities. Cultivate and support deep relationships with key governmental, civic, and industry stakeholders across current and future service areas, including city, county, state and federal leadership. In collaboration with executive and Board leadership, help shape engagement on legislative, regulatory, and policy matters impacting the enterprise. Ensure that community partnerships, advocacy efforts, and local engagement strategies are coordinated, forward-looking, and aligned with Wellstar’s growth ambitions and mission.
•Across all areas, the CEAO will inspire and implement an external affairs strategy that is contemporary, sophisticated, adaptable, and authentic — ensuring that team members, caregivers, clinicians, partners, and external stakeholders experience a consistent and compelling Wellstar identity defined by quality, trust, and impact.
Strategic Leadership
•Serve as the enterprise leader responsible for defining and executing a unified external affairs strategy that aligns marketing, communications, government relations, and community engagement in support of Wellstar’s growth and differentiation objectives.
•Partner with the CEO and Executive Team to shape and articulate Wellstar’s strategic positioning, ensuring continuity of messaging that drives actions, behaviors, and outcomes across the System, including clinicians, providers, team members, and external stakeholders.
•Assess current structure, capabilities, talent, and agency partnerships; design and implement an integrated operating model that strengthens internal expertise, reduces silos, and enhances enterprise coordination across markets.
•Bring to life a clear and compelling Wellstar narrative that elevates the System’s visibility as a provider of choice and employer of choice, strengthening brand recognition regionally and nationally.
•Facilitate clarity of System vision, mission, and values while ensuring consistency and credibility of the narrative across diverse constituencies and geographic markets.
•Leverage deep business and industry leadership experience across the Atlanta metropolitan area and the broader Southeast to strengthen strategic partnerships, elevate Wellstar’s regional influence, and anticipate market dynamics that shape enterprise priorities.
•Build, develop, and lead a high-performing, cross-functional leadership team; establish clear priorities, performance metrics, and accountability standards that support a more strategic and externally focused organization.
•Provide strategic counsel to executive leadership and the Board on reputational risk, stakeholder engagement, brand positioning, and emerging issues, ensuring proactive and coordinated responses in a complex and highly regulated environment.
•Educate and influence leaders across the enterprise on the role of brand, communications, and stakeholder engagement in driving consumer preference, market growth, philanthropy, and community trust.
•Develop and steward the enterprise external affairs budget, optimizing investment across marketing, communications, government relations, and community initiatives to maximize impact, visibility, and return while maintaining fiscal discipline.
•Establish measurement frameworks and performance dashboards to track brand strength, engagement, market penetration, and reputation metrics, ensuring data-driven decision making and continuous improvement.
Marketing & Brand
•Develop and lead a comprehensive, enterprise-wide brand strategy that clearly differentiates Wellstar in an increasingly competitive healthcare landscape and positions the System for regional and national prominence.
•Assess and modernize the current marketing function, including talent, structure, capabilities, tools, agency relationships, and performance metrics; build a more sophisticated, integrated, and data-driven marketing organization.
•Establish a disciplined brand governance framework that ensures consistency across hospitals, service lines, geographic markets, and newly integrated entities while preserving appropriate market-level nuance.
•Design and execute multi-channel marketing strategies — including digital, advertising, content, experiential, and service line promotion, that drive patient acquisition, market share growth, physician recruitment, and brand loyalty.
•Lead the development of compelling, differentiated campaigns that elevate awareness of Wellstar’s clinical excellence, innovation, and community impact, moving the organization from a historically “undifferentiated” market perception to a distinct and preferred provider of choice.
•Partner closely with the Chief Strategy & Growth Officer and market leaders to align marketing efforts with expansion priorities, acquisitions, partnerships, and new service offerings, ensuring brand readiness and coordinated market entry.
•Strengthen internal marketing capabilities and reduce over-reliance on external agencies by building high-performing in-house talent, while strategically leveraging agency partnerships where they add unique value.
•Implement robust analytics and performance measurement systems to track campaign effectiveness, consumer engagement, conversion metrics, and return on marketing investment, driving continuous improvement.
•Ensure that brand positioning authentically reflects Wellstar’s mission, values, clinical quality, and patient experience, creating alignment between marketing promise and operational delivery.
•Advance Wellstar’s reputation as both a provider of choice and employer of choice, supporting talent acquisition, physician engagement, and long-term workforce strategy.
Communications Strategy
•Develop and lead a comprehensive, enterprise-wide communications strategy that advances Wellstar’s strategic positioning, strengthens reputation, and ensures a consistent, compelling narrative across all stakeholder audiences.
•Establish and socialize a shared strategic message platform that clearly articulates Wellstar’s clinical excellence, innovation, growth ambitions, and community impact, ensuring alignment across hospitals, markets, and leadership.
•Shift the communications function toward a more proactive, externally focused model — elevating media relations, executive visibility, thought leadership, and strategic storytelling at the regional and national levels.

Serve as senior advisor to the CEO and Executive Leadership Team on reputation management, high-profile announcements, sensitive issues, and emerging risks in a complex and highly regulated healthcare environment.
•Design and implement a robust crisis and issues management framework, including monitoring, scenario planning, rapid response protocols, and coordinated cross-functional engagement to protect and advance the System’s reputation.
•Lead executive communications strategy, including key speeches, stakeholder communications, board materials, and strategic announcements, ensuring clarity, consistency, and credibility.
•Oversee digital communications and content strategy, ensuring seamless integration across web, social, and emerging platforms to enhance accessibility, transparency, and engagement with clinicians, providers, patients, and community stakeholders.
•Develop measurement standards and reporting frameworks to assess communications effectiveness, media impact, digital engagement, and reputation metrics, driving continuous improvement.
•Ensure high standards of writing, creative development, and production across all enterprise communications materials, maintaining brand integrity and professional excellence.
•Partner cross-functionally to translate consumer insights, physician engagement feedback, and market intelligence into messaging strategies that reinforce Wellstar’s value proposition and support service line growth.
•Position Wellstar as a leading voice in healthcare by proactively cultivating relationships with key healthcare, business, and news media outlets, ensuring the System is recognized as the first and most trusted source for expert insights, commentary, and industry perspective.
Government/Community Relations
•Provide strategic oversight and enterprise alignment for government and community relations activities, ensuring advocacy, stakeholder engagement, and civic partnerships are fully integrated with Wellstar’s growth and brand strategy.
•Partner closely with the Vice President of Government Relations to shape legislative and regulatory priorities at the local, state, and federal levels, ensuring coordinated messaging and alignment with enterprise objectives.
•Cultivate and strengthen relationships with key governmental, civic, business, and industry leaders across current and future service areas, supporting market expansion, partnerships, and community trust.
•Partner closely with the Vice President of Strategic Community Development to align community engagement strategies with enterprise priorities, fostering meaningful partnerships with chambers, nonprofits, workforce organizations, and local agencies that strengthen Wellstar’s presence and long-term sustainability in each market.
•Support executive and Board engagement with key policymakers and community stakeholders, ensuring consistent positioning and coordinated outreach

Required Minimum Education:
Bachelor’s Degree required. Master's Degree (preferred)

Required Minimum Experience:
A minimum of 15 years of experience in external affairs, branded communications, marketing, or consumer or employee engagement or related field with at least ten (10) years in a senior leadership capacity.

Required Minimum Skills:
Proven executive-level experience leading integrated marketing, brand, and communications functions within a
complex, multi-site, highly regulated organization; healthcare experience is valued but not required.
•Demonstrated success building or transforming marketing and communications capabilities, including assessing talent, modernizing structures, elevating brand strategy, and strengthening internal expertise while effectively leveraging agency partnerships.
•Track record of developing and executing sophisticated, enterprise-wide messaging strategies that engage internal audiences (team members, physicians, caregivers) while simultaneously strengthening relationships with consumers, policymakers, community leaders, and business stakeholders.
•Experience serving as a strategic partner to a President/CEO and Board of Directors, providing counsel on reputation management, stakeholder engagement, public positioning, and sensitive issues in dynamic environments.
•Demonstrated ability to operate effectively within a complex, matrixed system, influencing across markets, service lines, and leadership teams to achieve alignment without direct authority in all areas.
•Proven leadership of large, diverse, and geographically distributed teams; ability to attract, develop, and retain high-performing marketing and communications talent.
•Strong executive presence and credibility as an articulate, visible spokesperson capable of representing the organization in media settings, public forums, civic environments, and high-level stakeholder engagements.
•Experience developing measurable performance frameworks, using data and insights to inform strategy, evaluate impact, and drive continuous improvement across marketing and communications functions.
•Demonstrated accountability for advancing a consumer-centric culture, aligning brand promise with patient experience, workforce engagement, and community trust.
•Familiarity with public policy, advocacy, and regulatory environments, and the ability to collaborate effectively with government relations professionals to support enterprise priorities.

Leadership Attributes:
• A strategic thinker and enterprise leader who balances long-term brand vision with operational execution.
• Constructively dissatisfied with the status quo and energized by the opportunity to build, modernize, and elevate a
function during a period of growth and transformation.
• A compelling storyteller who can translate complex clinical, operational, and strategic concepts into clear,
differentiated narratives.
• Consumer-driven and insight-oriented, with the ability to turn market intelligence into actionable strategy.
• A developer of leaders who builds strong teams, fosters accountability, and creates clarity of purpose.
• Adaptable and resilient, thriving in environments where change is constant and growth ambitions are significant.
• Humble and self-aware, willing to acknowledge gaps while confidently driving progress and inspiring others.

Join us and discover the support to do more meaningful work—and enjoy a more rewarding life. Connect with the most integrated health system in Georgia, and start a future that gives you more.