Head of Marketing & Communications

About the role

About Us At Antares, our long-term mission is to make clean energy abundant from Earth to the Asteroid Belt. We’re fueled by the belief that advanced nuclear energy can strengthen our military, solve the climate crisis, elevate global living standards, and expand humanity's presence in outer space. To achieve our mission, we’re building mass-producible, inherently safe, deployable microreactors that can be used terrestrially, underwater, and in space. The Antares team hails from SpaceX, the White House, the Pentagon, the Department of Energy, MIT, Rigetti Computing, General Atomics, Relativity Space, Ursa Major, and National Laboratories like Idaho, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Savannah River. Antares has raised over $600M in venture capital from top-tier investors and has hundreds of million-dollars on contract with the military services, NASA, and the Department of Energy. About the Role Antares is seeking a Head of Communications and Marketing to build and lead a world-class function that advances the company’s growth, strengthens its position in the market, and reflects the standard of excellence expected across Antares. This leader will set the strategy, continually refine it as the company evolves, and drive the implementation plan for how Antares reaches and influences its defense, civil government, commercial, and international customers. They will also shape how Antares communicates with its broader stakeholder ecosystem, including investors, regulators, the public, state and Tribal governments, host communities, current employees, and prospective employees in order to attract the very best talent. The Head of Communications and Marketing will own the full communications and marketing function across Antares, with responsibility for turning strategy into disciplined execution. This includes proactive stakeholder communications, executive communications and preparation, events and conference strategy, customer-facing marketing, internal communications across Antares’ sites, brand and digital presence, crisis and issues management, and capturing and producing compelling content that brings Antares’ technology, people, progress, and mission to life. The Head of Communications and Marketing will report to the Chief Nuclear Officer, serve as a member of company leadership, and lead a team that includes the Communications Manager, Creative Lead, and external partners. The role will work closely across all company verticals and advise the CEO and executive team directly on messaging, positioning, priorities, and opportunities. Antares is looking for a proven communications and marketing leader who has helped take a startup through multiple stages of rapid growth, building and evolving the function as the company scales, raises capital, enters new markets, and reaches major commercial and organizational milestones. Success will mean a communications and marketing function that is tightly aligned with the business plan and consistently delivers tangible outcomes across Antares’ different business verticals. Roles & Responsibilities - Translate the company’s business objectives into a clear communications and marketing strategy and execution plan, with priorities and goals aligned to the needs of Antares’ business verticals and the company as a whole. - Own the events and conference program as a strategic business development channel, including the annual calendar, venue selection, executive speaking, physical presence and demonstrations, hosted meetings and side events, and the follow-through needed to convert each appearance into pipeline, partnerships, and policy progress. - Build the marketing function around the buyer, including positioning and materials for government, commercial, and international customers, web and digital presence, brand system, and programs that directly support customer engagement and business development. - Run stakeholder communications across the full ecosystem, including military services and program offices, DOE and the national laboratories, NRC and state regulators, Congress, host communities and local stakeholders where Antares is deploying, suppliers, investors, customers, and commercial partners, in close coordination with corporate strategy and policy. - Build and run internal communications as a core operating discipline, including all-hands, leadership updates, milestone communications, and site-to-site connective tissue that keeps the entire Antares team aligned on company priorities and public-facing messaging. - Give the CEO and leadership team a clear, consistent voice inside and outside the company, and own their preparation for testimony, media interviews, television appearances, podcasts, keynotes, conference panels, public events, and other high-profile engagements. - Own crisis and issues management, including developing response playbooks, preparing leadership, and conducting regular exercises to build organizational readiness for high-stakes situations. - Lead and develop the communications and marketing team, including the Communications Manager and Creative Lead, and oversee external partners and the resources required to execute the function effectively. - Provide timely, clear reporting to leadership on communications and marketing priorities, progress, deliverables, and outcomes. - Represent Antares at customer meetings, site visits, conferences, and other external engagements. Basic Qualifications - Bachelor’s degree required. - At least 10 years of experience in communications and marketing, including significant experience leading communications and marketing teams and functions. - Experience helping a high-growth startup scale through multiple stages of growth, including evolving the communications and marketing function as the company raises capital, enters new markets, and reaches major commercial and organizational milestones. - Demonstrated ability to build and execute integrated, multi-stakeholder communications strategies tied to measurable business objectives, with results to show for it. - Experience building an internal communications program at a company growing quickly across multiple sites. - Experience in defense, energy, aerospace, or another regulated, hardware-driven industry serving government, commercial, and international customers. - Experience leading crisis and issues management at the executive level. - Experience building and managing a team and budget. - Exceptional writing and editing, with strong editorial judgment and the ability to identify and develop compelling content, quickly become fluent in complex technical subject matter, and translate technical and regulatory topics into clear, compelling communications for non-expert audiences. Preferred Skills and Experience - Experience taking a company through a defining public moment, such as a first-of-a-kind demonstration, major government award, late-stage financing round, or IPO. - Ability to foster existing relationships and build new ones with national defense, energy, business, and technology press, as well as Congressional, Executive Branch, and agency stakeholders. - Investor relations or public-company communications experience. Additional Requirements - Ability to travel up to 25% for conferences, customer and partner meetings, site visits, and time with the team in Idaho Falls, ID; Aiken, SC; and Washington, DC. Culture At Antares, we like to specifically tie each role to our founding document’s set of values–here are the top five cultural values we think you should believe at your core to be successful: - Think in Systems - Energy and Defense are complex ecosystems with numerous stakeholders with competing priorities, conflicting policies, perverse incentives, and emergent and path-dependent properties. First principles thinking alone is insufficient. Think probabilistically and then take action. “If you want to be certain, then you are apt to be obsolete.” Over-optimizing the components often degrades the system - Obsess over the End User - The customer and end user are often not the same. We will never build globally competitive commercial products if we lose sight of our end users and their entire interaction with the product life cycle - Be Unconstrained by Convention - Our only limits are the laws of physics. Many, even experts, will say what we are working on is impossible. They said the same about SpaceX reusing rockets. Generationally impactful companies, by definition, must accomplish the seemingly impossible. If it were easy, it would have already been done. Never shy away from a solution because it has never been tried before, and never choose to do something because that's “how it's always been done” - Go Where the Work Is - Never miss a chance to meet a customer, user, or stakeholder face to face, even if that means hopping on a plane. If you can’t make it, find a teammate who can channel your intentions and go in your place. Deep work can be done from anywhere, but we believe teams are built in person, and aim to maximize our time together - Operate in the Grey - Embrace nuance in pursuit of truth. Question every fundamental assumption Equal Opportunity Antares is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, competence, and qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status. ITAR REQUIREMENTS To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/?id=ddtc_kb_article_page&sys_id=24d528fddbfc930044f9ff621f961987.