English PR & Communications Manager

You'll innovate, collaborate, and grow - in an energetic technology culture with decades of proven success. You are visible, your talents are valued, and you are empowered to shape the future of payments.

As a Communications and Corporate Affairs Director in Mumbai, India, you will join a diverse, passionate team, dedicated to powering the world's payments ecosystem! Reporting to the Global Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs, the Communications and Corporate Affairs Director leads the development, implementation and coordination of communications strategy across assigned regions. The role builds and protects ACI Worldwide's reputation with the audiences who shape growth in these markets: customers, media, industry and investor analysts, regulators, policymakers and opinion leaders.

This role is the regional communications lead within ACI's global crisis and incident response framework, working alongside the global team, Legal, Security and the account teams under pressure and on short clocks.

They are a trusted advisor to regional leadership, comfortable in front of senior executives and comfortable saying what they think. They write fast and well, they are current on how communications work is produced today, including the use of AI, and they exercise judgment about when a tool is not a finished product.

Lead ACI's earned media program across assigned regions, building and maintaining direct relationships with the payments, banking, fintech, technology and business journalists covering priority markets.

• Secure coverage in priority outlets, delivering against agreed targets for placement quality, message pull-through, interviews and feature opportunities, and reporting against them.
• Maintain regular in-person engagement with journalists, executives and priority industry events in assigned regions.
• Crisis and Issues Communications
• Serve as the regional communications lead within ACI's global crisis and incident response framework, covering service incidents, security matters, regulatory inquiries and materially or reputationally significant customer escalations.
• Work with Legal, Security, Product and the account teams to establish facts before language is drafted security and vulnerability communications follow CISO, Legal and incident governance approval, market-sensitive matters involve Investor Relations and Legal, and regulatory outreach goes through approved Legal, compliance and public affairs channels.
• Operate within an agreed regional coverage and escalation model, with clean handoffs to colleagues in other regions any formal out-of-hours expectations are set under local employment terms.

Corporate and Executive Communications

• Provide counsel and support to regional leadership and senior executives, including media training, briefing, message development and platform building.
• Lead communications for regional priorities and assigned business segments, coordinating with global and local leaders on execution.
• Support regulatory and public affairs engagement in region through approved channels, including relationships with industry bodies, payment schemes and trade associations.

Writing, AI and Digital

• Write and edit to a publishable standard: press releases, pitches, bylines, executive commentary, talking points and customer-facing language.
• Use ACI-approved AI tools for research, market and media intelligence, background analysis, drafting and editing.
• Verify independently facts, quotations, statistics, source attribution and journalist contacts are confirmed against primary sources or a licensed media database before use, and AI-generated media lists are not used without verification.
• Own the output the employee is accountable for every final deliverable regardless of how it was produced, and all final work meets ACI editorial, approval, brand, copyright and licensing standards.
• Ensure translated material receives qualified native-speaker review before publication machine translation is never publication ready.
• Work with the global digital team to amplify earned coverage and executive appearances.

Own a tiered regional strategy across agreed priority markets, set on business presence, customer base, risk and growth priorities.

• Build coverage beyond a home market through direct relationships, agency networks and local partners.
• Uses conferences and trade shows to secure interviews and build press relationships does not own event planning or production.
• Works with the global digital team on amplification does not own the regional editorial calendar or routine social production.
• Operates within ACI's established ownership and approval frameworks for incident facts, disclosure and regulatory contact.

Manage agencies, freelancers and vendors in region, including scope, budget and performance.

• Manage the regional communications budget and report against plan.
• Evaluate and report on program performance in partnership with Corporate, Product and Field Marketing.
• Understand and adhere to all corporate policies, including the ACI Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.
• Bachelor's degree in a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 10 or more years of relevant communications experience, in-house, agency or both, including leadership of multi-market or regional programs.
• Demonstrated media relations results, evidenced by the markets and categories of outlets covered, coverage the candidate led or directly secured, and a clear approach to building and sustaining journalist relationships.
• B2B communications, with a track record of placing a complex enterprise story with business and trade press rather than consumer media.
• Enterprise software communications, including product and platform announcements, technical positioning, and working directly with product and engineering teams.
• Crisis and issues management experience, evidenced by anonymized examples involving customers, regulators or security.
• Senior executive communications, including counseling and preparing leaders for media and public engagement.
• Corporate PR, including announcements, reputation programs and message development.
• Digital and social media.
• Demonstrated responsible use of AI tools for research, analysis and drafting, including verification discipline and confidentiality judgment candidates should be prepared to describe how they use, or would use, these tools responsibly.
• International experience, with a proven ability to work effectively across multiple countries and cultures.
• Payments, banking, financial infrastructure, fintech or regulated enterprise technology knowledge, including the systems that route and process payments.
• Working proficiency with media intelligence, monitoring, collaboration and project management platforms (Muck Rack or equivalent) and Microsoft 365.
• English fluency required additional languages relevant to the assigned regions are considered a strong advantage.
• Experience managing localization and professional translation across multiple markets.

Complex stakeholder management able to listen, understand and operate across multiple agendas with different internal and external stakeholders.

• Resilient works through rejection, cancelled interviews, difficult coverage and quiet news periods without losing momentum.
• Cultural and regulatory judgment recognizes when a global message is incomplete or inappropriate for a local market, and says so.
• Strategic and creative, with excellent verbal and written communication skills meticulous and driven, able to produce publishable material and work across cross-functional areas of the business.

MBA, or a master's degree in Communications, Journalism or a related field.

• Experience supporting communications for a publicly listed company, a regulated financial institution or a critical infrastructure provider.
• Prior experience at a payments, banking or financial technology company, or at an agency serving that sector.
• Experience supporting communications in more than one of the markets covered by this role.

Customer Focus: building strong customer relationships and delivering customer-centric solutions.

• Collaborates: building partnerships and working collaboratively with others.
• In return for your expertise, we offer opportunities for growth, career development, and a competitive compensation and benefits package-all within an innovative and collaborative work environment.

Are you ready to help us transform the payments ecosystem To learn more about ACI Worldwide, visit our web site at

ACI Worldwide is an AA/EEO employer in the United States, which includes providing equal opportunity for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities, and an EEO employer globally.

Please be cautious and verify any communications claiming to be from our company ( / @aciworldwide.The ACI Worldwide recruitment team will always follow official channels and will never request payment.

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