Sr. Manager, Communications

McKesson is an impact-driven, Fortune 10 company that touches virtually every aspect of healthcare. We are known for delivering insights, products, and services that make quality care more accessible and affordable. Here, we focus on the health, happiness, and well-being of you and those we serve – we care.

What you do at McKesson matters. We foster a culture where you can grow, make an impact, and are empowered to bring new ideas. Together, we thrive as we shape the future of health for patients, our communities, and our people. If you want to be part of tomorrow’s health today, we want to hear from you.

Title: Sr. Manager, Communications

Hub Locations: Alpharetta, GA; Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX (Preferred)

Position Summary

McKesson is advancing a more connected, dependable communications experience for business-critical technology services. This role will create the shared standards, readiness practices, and trusted partnerships that enable planned maintenance and service interruptions to be communicated with greater speed, clarity, and confidence. The Senior Specialist will own the end-to-end communications operating model, translating complex and fast-changing system information into timely, accurate, and actionable messages for internal partners across the U.S. pharmaceutical distribution business. Operating with substantial independence, this highly visible role will bring structure to ambiguity, strengthen alignment across technology and business teams, and continuously improve how McKesson communicates when information matters most.

Broader portfolio contribution: The role also provides communications counsel and execution support for selected technology releases, product changes, innovation initiatives, roadmaps, executive updates, and operational communications serving internal and external audiences.

Expected Outcome

• Clarity during disruption

• Partners receive concise, audience-appropriate information that explains impact, timing, actions, and next updates without unnecessary technical language.

• Speed with accuracy

• Repeatable intake, review, approval, and distribution practices shorten the path from validated facts to approved communications.

• Operational readiness

• Playbooks, templates, FAQs, decision paths, stakeholder maps, and contact lists are current and usable before they are needed.

• Trusted partnership

• Technology, product, operations, and communications partners have a reliable lead who can navigate competing priorities and drive decisions.

• Continuous improvement

• Post-event insights are translated into stronger processes, cleaner audience data, and more consistent communications performance.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead business continuity and service communications

• Own end-to-end communications for planned maintenance, degraded service, and unplanned outages affecting critical platforms. Gather validated facts, define audience needs, draft initial and follow-up messages, develop collateral, coordinate review, and manage distribution through resolution.

• Build communications readiness and governance

• Design and maintain practical playbooks, templates, FAQs, intake standards, approval paths, escalation guidance, decision points, and message cadences that improve speed and consistency.

• Translate technical information for business audiences

• Partner with product managers, engineers, service owners, and incident teams to convert technical details into plain-language communications describing business impact, timing when known, workarounds, required actions, and next steps.

• Manage stakeholder relationships and alignment

• Serve as a dedicated communications partner across technical and business functions. Build durable relationships, clarify ownership, challenge incomplete information, reconcile competing inputs, and drive timely decisions without formal authority.

• Govern audiences, channels, and distribution

• Create, maintain, and routinely validate distribution lists and stakeholder maps. Strengthen audience segmentation, ownership, access, and change controls so approved messages reach the right partners through the right channels.

• Measure effectiveness and improve the operating model

• Capture lessons after significant events, identify recurring breakdowns, and implement corrective actions. Establish practical measures for readiness, timeliness, accuracy, reach, update cadence, and stakeholder feedback.

• Support adjacent technical, product, innovation, and executive communications

• Provide writing, editing, strategy, and communications counsel for selected technology releases, product changes, roadmaps, innovation initiatives, executive updates, and other operational communications requiring coordinated messaging.

Minimum Requirement

Degree or equivalent and typically requires 7+ years of relevant experience.

Education

Bachelor's degree in communications, journalism, public relations, business, information systems, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

Critical Skills

• Typically 7+ years of relevant experience in corporate, employee, operational, technical, crisis, incident, or change communications.

• Demonstrated experience owning high-visibility communications in a complex, matrixed environment with multiple reviewers and time-sensitive deadlines.

• Demonstrated experience partnering with technology, product, engineering, service management, or operations teams and translating complex information for nontechnical audiences.

• Experience creating and sustaining repeatable communications processes, templates, playbooks, FAQs, governance, or audience-management practices.

Additional Skills

• Advanced business writing and editing skills, including the ability to produce concise, accurate messages from incomplete or rapidly changing inputs.

• Working knowledge of technology service operations, planned maintenance, incident response, release and change activity, system dependencies, business continuity, and business-impact assessment.

• Ability to independently structure ambiguous work, identify missing information, surface communications risk, recommend a path forward, and drive closure across organizational lines.

• Experience managing stakeholder maps, distribution lists, shared mailboxes, communication channels, and version-controlled content.

• Ability to balance urgency, accuracy, transparency, and appropriate review while maintaining a clear record of decisions and approvals.

• Proficiency with Microsoft 365 collaboration and communication tools, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint, or comparable platforms.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in healthcare, pharmaceutical distribution, regulated operations, or another environment where system availability directly affects customers and business continuity.

• Experience with IT service management, major-incident communications, change enablement, business continuity, or disaster-recovery communications.

• Familiarity with collaboration, alerting, ticketing, or incident-management platforms used to coordinate operational communications.

• Experience developing simple reporting or dashboards that show communications readiness, timeliness, reach, and recurring improvement opportunities.

• Experience crafting product, innovation, roadmap, or executive communications for internal and external audiences.

This role is designed for a senior individual contributor who

• Works without considerable direction and uses significant latitude to determine the approach for complex assignments.

• Develops solutions to complex problems that require creativity and judgment within broadly defined policies and practices.

• Anticipates change, redirects work as conditions evolve and contributes new methods and operating approaches.

• Represents the function on matters requiring coordination across organizational lines and interacts effectively with management and senior stakeholders.

• May guide the work of others or serve as a subject-matter resource without formal people-management responsibility.

Success Measures: First 12–18 Months

• A documented and adopted operating model exists for planned maintenance and unplanned service communications, including clear intake, review, approval, escalation, and distribution practices.

• Core templates, playbooks, FAQs, stakeholder maps, and distribution lists are established, owned, and maintained on a defined review cycle.

• Technical and business stakeholders use a consistent message structure and understand how to engage the role for high-impact events.

• Communications performance is monitored using practical measures for readiness, time to first communication, update cadence, accuracy, audience reach, and stakeholder feedback.

• Post-event reviews generate tracked improvements to content, process, audience data, and decision-making.

• Partners report greater clarity, consistency, and confidence in communications related to critical technology services.

Must be authorized to work in the US. Sponsorship is not available for this position.

We are proud to offer a competitive compensation package at McKesson as part of our Total Rewards. This is determined by several factors, including performance, experience and skills, equity, regular job market evaluations, and geographical markets. The pay range shown below is aligned with McKesson's pay philosophy, and pay will always be compliant with any applicable regulations. In addition to base pay, other compensation, such as an annual bonus or long-term incentive opportunities may be offered. For more information regarding benefits at McKesson, please click here.

Our Base Pay Range for this position

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