VP of Communications

Job description

## **VP of Communications** ## **Mission** LENS’s mission is to end traffic accidents. LENS prevents accidents and saves lives by detecting hazards to prevent accidents before they happen. ## **Platform & Product** LENS Detect scans CCTV feeds on highways to identify hazards, in real-time, before they become accidents. Public Safety agencies, alongside Departments of Transportation, receive alerts on the LENS Detect dashboard about Disabled Vehicles, Stalled Big Rigs, and Pedestrians on Freeway. A dispatcher reviews and validates the detection, and then dispatches an officer to the scene to assist the person in need — resulting in either preventing an accident or saving a life. CBS LA recently did a three minute TV feature that succinctly captures what LENS is doing with Public Safety Agencies in one of the largest traffic capitals in the world: [CHP LA Communications Center using AI to prevent accidents before they happen](http://youtube.com/watch?v=KrY2NVJ2eno) ## **Role & Responsibilities** As the VP of Communications, you seek transformational change. You do not accept the status quo that accidents are an accepted inevitability, or that *they just happen*. Instead, you believe when the root cause of an accident can be known in advance, the accident can and should be prevented. You work with fellow Preventers that share this core belief, using LENS to prevent accidents and save lives. Your responsibilities are: - **Define and execute the communications strategy that shapes how the world understands LENS**: who we are, what we do, and why it matters. Communications owns the narrative layer that precedes every agency relationship, investor conversation, and policy engagement. - **Owning the LENS narrative across media, government, and the public.** Your audiences are journalists, policymakers, government officials, and the broader public safety community. You ensure every message landing in those channels is clear, credible, and reinforcing the mission, working with Marketing and Customer teams to convert that credibility into mission impact. - **Building and leading earned media strategy**, developing relationships with journalists, producers, and outlets covering AI, public safety, transportation, and technology. You turn LENS's real-world impact into stories that build institutional trust and public awareness at scale. - **Preparing and coaching leadership for public appearances**, including press interviews, congressional testimony, conference keynotes, and policy forums, so every appearance advances LENS's credibility with the audiences that shape the environment we operate in. - **Building and maintaining a rapid response capability**, ensuring LENS can comment quickly and credibly on breaking news in AI, public safety, and traffic incidents in a way that inserts the mission into the conversations that are already happening. ## **Mindset, Principles, and Skills & Experience** Your **mindset** is grounded in: - **The mission is the most powerful story.** Every accident prevented and every life saved deserves to be celebrated. You find, shape, and tell those stories with the weight they deserve, in a way that earns institutional trust, reaches policymakers and the public, and creates the conditions in which LENS can serve more agencies. - **Simultaneously setting foundation, while remaining curious and open.** You build the communications infrastructure LENS needs today - messaging frameworks, media relationships, crisis protocols - while staying open to new formats, channels, and approaches that expand the mission's reach. - **Adaptability drives evolution.** The communications landscape changes constantly. You don't wait for a playbook - you write it, and refine it as you learn what lands. **Principles** you share with us are: - **We focus to supercharge our creative impact.** You concentrate communications energy on the channels, stories, and moments that will move the needle most - not every opportunity equally, but the ones that reach the most people and advance the mission fastest. - **Begin with the end in mind.** Before drafting a message or pitching a story, you identify the outcome you want - a new agency relationship opened, public trust built, a policy door unlocked - and work backwards to the communications strategy that gets there. - **Invest the most time where it makes the most progress.** You evaluate every communications initiative by the 80/20 rule, directing energy toward the stories, relationships, and moments that create the most mission impact. The **Skills & Experience** you have are: - **Building and leading communications functions** at mission-driven technology companies, government-facing organizations, or in a senior agency role supporting high-profile clients. - **Earned media expertise** - a track record of placing stories in top-tier national outlets and building durable relationships with journalists covering technology, public safety, and policy. - **Delivering communications outcomes that build trust with government agency partners** - where credibility, consistency, and careful message management are non-negotiable. - **Executive communications and media coaching** - experience preparing CEOs and senior leaders for press, public appearances, and high-stakes stakeholder engagements. - **Crisis communications** - proven ability to manage sensitive situations with speed, clarity, and sound judgment under pressure. - **Being a senior management member**, working alongside other senior operators to advance a meaningful, mission-driven cause. The time to accept traffic accidents is ending, and the time to prevent them has begun. This belief is becoming more of an inevitable reality every day. The number of agencies LENS serves keeps growing - and the world needs to know why. If you want to shape the narrative of a company preventing accidents and saving lives, and use the power of communication to accelerate that mission, this role is for you. LENS is an equal opportunity employer committed to building an inclusive workplace. We do not discriminate against any applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.