Executive Officer for Communications, Brand & Strategic Projects

About the Role

This position is a hands-on execution role built for someone who wants responsibility, speed, and real proximity to decision-making. It is not a prestige title or a light coordination post. The role sits directly beside the Chief Communications & Brand Officer and focuses on doing the work personally: drafting materials, following through on tasks, fixing issues, preparing briefings, and moving sensitive initiatives forward.

Destinus is a European defence manufacturer developing scalable strike and air-defence systems for European and allied armed forces. The business operates at the intersection of engineering, autonomy, industrial production, and European security. The environment is fast-moving, demanding, and outcome-driven.

The Executive Officer will support communications, PR, partnerships, external positioning, strategic initiatives, events, research, and problem-solving. The objective is to create leverage, reduce friction, and help critical work advance quickly.

Typical work may include preparing a strategic briefing before a government meeting, supporting a partnership conversation, coordinating a media response, organizing a delegation visit, shaping external communication, researching a new market, preparing an event, publishing on LinkedIn, or resolving an operational challenge.

What You Will Do

• Lead and progress strategic initiatives tied to business, brand, communications, partnerships, and external positioning.
• Support business development efforts, customer conversations, partner outreach, and market analysis.
• Draft briefings, memos, presentations, talking points, and post-meeting follow-ups for senior stakeholders.
• Convert complex media, commercial, and geopolitical inputs into clear recommendations and communication outputs.
• Coordinate urgent work across teams, locations, and functions.
• Spot issues early and drive them through to resolution.
• Represent the office in selected meetings and make sure agreed actions are completed.
• Assist with events, press activities, external engagements, and stakeholder interactions.
• Create order in ambiguous situations without waiting for a process to be handed down.
• Act as a multiplier for the Chief Communications & Brand Officer.

Who This Role Is For

You are expected to be a builder, not a passive coordinator or someone mainly interested in the appearance of seniority. The ideal candidate takes ownership without needing constant supervision, works calmly through ambiguity, and focuses on outcomes over optics.

You do not need prior defence experience. What matters most is the ability to learn extremely quickly, take responsibility early, and work with intensity and judgment. Strong candidates often have a track record of starting things before being officially asked to do so — such as projects, companies, prototypes, communities, code, systems, campaigns, or experiments.

The role rewards initiative, speed of learning, and the ability to turn unclear problems into concrete action.

Requirements

• Ability to take ownership quickly and act independently without close supervision.
• Comfort operating in a high-intensity, fast-changing environment.
• Strong execution mindset with the discipline to push work to completion.
• Capability to stay clear-headed under pressure and ambiguity.
• Skill in translating complex information into concise, practical outputs.
• Confidence engaging with senior leaders, partners, and external stakeholders.
• Willingness to learn rapidly and ask the right questions, even when you do not know everything yet.

Nice to Have

• Experience starting something from zero, such as a company, product, campaign, project, community, or system.
• Background or exposure in business development, strategy, communications, entrepreneurship, consulting, operations, defence, aerospace, or deep tech.
• Knowledge of additional European languages.
• Experience working closely with founders, executives, or senior decision-makers.
• Ability to read technical material and engage with it thoughtfully without pretending to know more than you do.

Not a Fit If

• You need a fully defined process before you can act.
• You treat meetings as a substitute for progress.
• You are drawn more to status than to accountability.
• You wait to be told exactly what to do.
• Your first reaction in a messy situation is to ask who owns it rather than helping solve it.

How to Apply

Applicants are expected to share more than a polished CV. You should submit evidence of something you have built — for example a company, project, product, campaign, community, system, written piece, event, research memo, prototype, or similar work.

Your application should answer the following:

• What was the most challenging thing you built?
• What responsibilities did you personally own?
• Where did it fail, or almost fail?
• What did you learn from the experience?
• Why does this role make sense for you at this stage?

The employer is looking for proof of initiative rather than buzzwords or performance.