Media & Public Affairs Manager

We have a fantastic opportunity as a Media & Public Affairs Manager here at AXA Ireland.

This is a senior role within the Communications & Brand team, responsible for shaping AXA’s reputation, managing media engagement, delivering thought leadership, and supporting public affairs activity that positions AXA as a trusted leader in insurance.

This role requires excellent media judgement, a strong news sense, and the confidence to advise senior leaders. You will be a skilled communicator and relationship builder, with the ability to turn complex business messages into clear, compelling stories that cut through.

Critically, you will work closely with our Marketing team to amplify campaigns, identify thought leadership opportunities, and bring proactive storytelling ideas to life across earned and owned media channels

At AXA we work smart, empowering our people to balance their time between home and the office in a way that works best for them, their team and our customers. You'll work at least 40% of your week away from home, moving to the majority of your working week from September 2025. Away from home means either attendance at one of our head office locations, visiting clients or attending industry events.

What you’ll be doing:

• Lead the simplification and digitisation of customer services, delivering good customer outcomes and interactions, leveraging data to understand customer behaviour, friction points and frustrations, shaping solutions that deliver better experiences and priorities.

• Lead AXA Ireland’s external media relations and public affairs strategy across all lines of business.

· Build and maintain strong relationships with national, business and trade media · Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders on media engagement, profile building and reputation management.

• Identify proactive media opportunities — and manage media risks with strong judgement and agility.

• Lead reactive media handling and issues management as required Thought Leadership & Content Development.

• Shape and deliver thought leadership content and campaigns for AXA Ireland — aligned with business strategy and reputation priorities, across our lines in health, retail and commercial insurance.

• Work closely with Marketing to amplify campaigns, identify news angles and thought leadership opportunities.

• Draft high-quality press releases, media statements, briefing notes, speeches and opinion pieces.

· Prepare and brief senior spokespeople for media engagement and speaking opportunities · Collaborate with AXA Group and European Communications teams to localise and amplify global campaigns Public Affairs & Stakeholder Engagement.

• Lead AXA’s engagement with key external stakeholders including industry bodies, regulators, government and business forums.

• Monitor public policy, regulatory and reputational developments impacting AXA’s business PR Agency & Budget Management.

• Manage AXA Ireland’s retained PR agency relationship — setting clear service level agreements (SLAs), managing key deliverables and evaluating performance.

• Lead on budget management for external communications — ensuring spend is well planned, aligned to priorities and delivering strong ROI.

• 
  Minimum 5-7 years’ experience in communications, media relations and/or public affairs role (essential)

• Third level qualification (degree) or the equivalent combination of education and experience (essential)

• In-house communications experience (desirable)

• Experience managing PR agency relationships and communications budgets (desirable)

• PPRI membership or MII membership (desirable)

This recruitment campaign will be used to support permanent, temporary and/or extension for any upcoming similar positions.

As a precondition of employment for this role, you must be eligible and authorized to work in Ireland and/or the United Kingdom

One of the best things about joining AXA is our rewards package. At AXA Ireland, we’re appreciative of the people who work for us and our rewards package reflects that. You can expect to receive:

• Competitive salary with annual review
• Annual company & performance-based bonus
• Contributory pension scheme (up to 10% employer contributions)
• Life Assurance
• Generous annual leave plus Bank Holidays
• AXA employee discounts
• Education support and plenty of learning opportunities.

AXA is proud to support the needs of our employees and as such understands everyone has individual work and home life responsibilities. We are therefore happy to discuss flexible working arrangements, should this be a requirement for you.

At AXA, we want to become one of the most inspiring companies to work for and to achieve this ambition, we need the best talent to come and work for us. We look for candidates with the right skills and values to join us and selection is based on a fair and equal process. As a financial services company, all successful candidates will require employment checks, so we can ensure regulatory compliance.

We’re proud to be committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all backgrounds.

AXA Ireland dac consider applicants on the basis of skills, experience & qualifications and without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital or veteran status, sexual orientation, disability or any other legally protected status.

Would you like to wake up every day driven and inspired by our noble mission and to work together as one global team to empower people to live a better life? Here at AXA we strive to lead the transformation of our industry. We are looking for talented individuals who come from varied backgrounds, think differently and want to be part of this exciting transformation by challenging the status quo so we can push AXA - a leading global brand and one of the most innovative companies in our industry - onto even greater things.

In a fast-evolving world and with a presence in 64 countries, our 166,000 employees and exclusive distributors anticipate change to offer services and solutions tailored to the current and future needs of our 103 million customers.

Proud to be part of the AXA Group, at AXA Ireland our values are at the heart of everything we do. We work together as One AXA, embracing our differences to make our teams great. We believe integrity, courage and our customer-first approach is what makes us a great place to work. AXA is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications from across all communities.