It’s a new year and Minerva Strategies is excited to offer a new service to our clients: interim senior communications leadership. Read more to find out why this offering is critical to organizations in transition, how it can help build stronger teams and achieve your mission, and how to get started.
Room at the top
We’ve all seen it happen. A director of communications leaves an organization, takes a sabbatical, or goes on parental leave, and overwhelmed team members try to absorb their responsibilities while leadership rushes to find a replacement. Or, an organization without a communications lead grows, and development or operations leaders take on increasingly complex communication activities in addition to their existing roles.
This can work for a while.
In some cases, a vacant leadership role gives junior staff the chance to stretch. Other leaders are often skilled communicators, and their instincts carry the work forward as the organization patches together a solution. But over time, capacity thins, roles blur, and decisions slow.
The work keeps moving—but without clear direction. And eventually, communication suffers.
Senior communications leaders deliver strategy, make judgment calls, provide mentorship, and maintain alignment with organizational goals. During periods of transition, those functions aren’t just helpful—they are essential.
The solution: Interim senior communications leadership
Interim senior communications leaders provide strategic guidance for a defined period of time. They step in quickly, assess what’s working and what isn’t, and provide clarity, direction, and decision-making while a permanent leader is on leave or while an organization prepares to hire.
This approach can be the right fit when:
- You’re recruiting for a senior communications role and need leadership in the meantime
- A communications leader is on extended leave
- Hiring is frozen, but expectations of the communications team are not
- Your organization is growing and you want to strengthen the team before making a permanent hire
The benefit isn’t just continuity. Interim leadership creates space to stabilize systems, mentor staff, and prepare the organization for what comes next. Interim leaders can also build the infrastructure for a highly effective team—helping define roles, assess team capacity, identify gaps, and ensure a smoother transition for the incoming leader.
When a permanent leader returns or joins, they aren’t stepping into a backlog of deferred decisions or unfinished work. They’re stepping into a role that’s been strategically managed while laying the foundation for long-term success.
Minerva as your interim senior communications leader
In response to this need, Minerva has formalized an interim senior communications leadership offering. When clients work with us, a senior member of the Minerva team can:
- Set and steward communications strategy
- Advise executive leadership in real time
- Manage and mentor staff
- Create clarity during moments of change
- Make decisions others are too stretched to make
- Leave the team stronger than they found it
These services not only keep your team aligned during the transition, they set up your returning or new leadership for success.
We bring deep experience to this work
Minerva has been playing this role for years. We’ve stepped in during leadership absences at a food justice organization, a community foundation, and a substance use treatment provider—developing communication plans, building systems, and strengthening teams.
We’ve also served as a steady hand during moments of crisis, advising leaders and communicating clearly with staff, board members, partners, and donors when it mattered most.
By naming and differentiating this offering, our goal is simple: to make it easier for organizations to ask for the leadership they need during moments of transition.
How Minerva can become your interim communications leader
When you work with Minerva as an interim leadership solution, you hire one of our senior leaders—director, vice president, or president—for 15-40 hours per month. You can retain the senior leader for little as three months or up to one year. Monthly pricing starts at $2,500 and depends on the amount of time and level of leadership experience that your organization requires. In addition, if your organization needs additional communication capacity, Minerva can pull in other team members to augment our interim leadership offering.
If you’re anticipating a communications leadership transition, an extended leave, or hiring for this role for the first time, we’d welcome a conversation about whether Minerva is the right interim partner. Contact us today for a free consultation.
