Employment Type 2-year fixed term contract, full time

Salary $115,000-$120,000 + super (12%)

About the role

The Head of Marketing and Communications – Festival of Dangerous Ideas is the creative and strategic lead for how the Festival presents itself to the world. The role owns the Festival's marketing, communications, brand and audience strategy, and is accountable for ticket sales, audience growth, public profile and ensuring the integration of partnership deliverables on collateral and owned channels. Each year the Festival develops a fresh campaign identity and integrated messaging that respond to that year's program while protecting and extending the Festival brand – setting the creative direction, managing the budget, leading a small internal team and directing external agencies to deliver.

Key responsibilities

- Lead the creative direction and core brand narrative of the Festival's marketing – generating campaign concepts and hands-on execution ideas.

- Develop a distinctive current campaign identity and integrated messaging each year that respond to that year's program while keeping the Festival brand consistent and recognisable.

- Protect and extend the Festival brand across all channels and touchpoints, keeping it bold, fresh and relevant.

- Develop and deliver the annual marketing, communications and audience-development strategy.

- Set and manage the marketing budget, and report on campaign performance and ROI.

- Develop, plan and lead implementation of integrated, innovative campaigns across paid and owned channels (digital, social, media, print, partnerships, promotions, content) to drive ticket sales and audience growth.

- Working with the Head of Partnerships, establish a network of media partnerships to maximise value and reach.

- Lead media and public relations, including media releases, spokesperson coordination and issues management.





- Lead and develop the Festival marketing team, including recruitment of short-term contractors to support delivery of the campaign.

- Brief, manage and hold accountable external suppliers, including PR/communications, digital media-buying agencies, photographers and videographers.

About you

- Senior marketing and communications experience, ideally in arts, festivals, culture or events.

- Strong creative instincts – able to shape campaign concepts, brand identity and messaging, while also managing delivery.

- Proven experience leading innovative, integrated campaigns that hit, and exceed, ticket-sales or audience targets.

- Proven ability to deliver strong results with limited resources.

- Experience managing budgets, small teams and external agencies.

- Strong media, PR and stakeholder skills, with sound judgement on sensitive or provocative content.

- Digital and data fluency: paid media, social, CRM/email and analytics.

- Established media and industry networks in Sydney or the national arts sector (desirable).

- Experience marketing a festival or a time-bound, campaign-driven program (desirable).

- Familiarity with ticketing platforms and audience-data tools (desirable).

About us

The Ethics Centre is a unique, Australian-based not-for-profit which works to place ethics at the centre of everyday life. It supports individuals and organisations to address complex ethical issues and stimulates public engagement through flagship programs like Festival of Dangerous Ideas. The Ethics Centre delivers services including consulting, public events, education and counselling to help individuals and organisations make better decisions aligned to their own considered values and principles. The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, presented by The Ethics Centre, is a Sydney festival built around provocative public conversation – talks, performance, film and live events that challenge audiences and put contested questions on the table.

📌 Head of Marketing and Communications – Festival of Dangerous Ideas (Sydney)
🏢 The Ethics Centre
📍 Sydney