Head of Public Policy, X

As the Head of Public Policy, you will be at the heart of the political and regulatory debates about new technology in multiple sectors. Your ultimate goal will be to ensure that the new innovations X develops can come to market and grow. To achieve this, you will manage a small team of public policy experts, sitting within the G&A team and reporting into the CFO. Your role will have both internal and external scope.

Internally, you will play a key role in the leadership team, partnering with engineers and entrepreneurs to advise them on the products and businesses X creates. Externally, you will be setting and leading the execution of X’s Public Policy strategy with Governments and regulators globally. You will work with a broad range of policy makers, elected and appointed, as well as academics, third-party experts to help advance our policy positions. In public forums, you will be a visionary advocate for new technology and its application to solving world problems.

X is a moonshot factory where uncomfortably ambitious, potentially world-changing new ideas such as self-driving cars, balloon-powered Internet and smart contact lenses are developed and taken out into the world. X projects have the potential to transform the lives of billions of people and make the world a radically better place. We’re a team of makers, entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists with deep technical expertise who love the challenge of the seemingly impossible. X was formerly known as Google[x].

Responsibilities

Manage the X policy team along with manage all the resources required to achieve X’s Public Policy goals.

Partner with the wider Bets to develop and execute an ambitious Public Policy strategy that enables X projects to experiment and innovate quickly and safely in a range of different international markets.

Work with trade associations, industry partners, academics, non-profit groups and other allies to promote and build support for policy positions that facilitate a healthy long term policy framework for innovation in the US.

Support and advise the CEO, CFO, peers and Project Leads on wider issues such as product design and strategy, business strategy and other corporate issues that arise as X evolves.

Advocate our policy positions to key constituencies nationally and world-wide; work with colleagues in Communications and Marketing on external collateral, and representing X in a range of public and private settings such as attending and speaking at events and in Government hosted meetings.

Qualifications

Minimum qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.

10 years of experience working in a government relations/public policy role within a technology company or trade association.

Experience working on developing new policy or legislative solutions with a government agency or legislative committee.

Preferred qualifications:
Strong understanding and passion for new technology and the associated policy and regulatory environments with a proven ability to quickly get up to speed on complex technical issues.

Strong teamwork capabilities while being entrepreneurial, scrappy and able to get things done with limited resources.

Strong teamwork and management capabilities with the ability to achieve goals and bring the wider team along with you; ability to build strong relationships with people across different disciplines (i.e. engineers and entrepreneurs).

Creative and audacious about what can be achieved in Public Policy and has awareness of the important role it plays in enabling a business to succeed; Ability to develop and advocate for innovative ways for legislation and regulation to evolve to facilitate the safe introduction of new technology in a commercial business setting.

Excellent analytical and communications (written and verbal) skills.

Ability to travel internationally.