Director of PR & Media Relations

This is a hybrid role, in-person 3x days a week in our Palo Alto office.

Blazel is a new VC-backed AI startup that helps 100 founders and executives grow their audience through AI-powered marketing. Founded by Zain Jaffer ($780M prior exit), the company aims to disrupt executive communications and public relations.

The role

We’re hiring a Director of PR & Media Relations to build and lead a modern earned-media function that combines classic relationship-driven pitching with AI-driven research, targeting, and scale. This is not a legacy PR role. We are trying to disrupt PR.

You will architect a system that secures coverage and podcast bookings across hundreds of clients simultaneously, supported by automated workflows, AI assistants, and a human team.

Responsibilities include cultivating strong relationships with tier-1 media contacts, managing a team of PR specialists, and working with our AI engineers to automate as much of the pitching process as possible.

Earned Media Strategy

• Define the strategy for securing steady editorial coverage and podcast appearances for a large number of tech clients.
• Build a scalable playbook that blends human judgment with AI targeting, research, and personalization.
• Set KPIs for volume, conversion rates, lead times, and narrative quality.

Execution Across Many Active Clients

• Oversee the full pipeline of pitching, follow-ups, scheduling, and post-placement workflows.
• Review and refine pitches so they align with each client’s expertise and current themes.
• Stay on top of hundreds of moving parts across a broad client base without losing quality or pace.

Relationship building

• Develop and grow direct relationships with podcast hosts, bookers, journalists, and editors across tech, business, and category-specific media.
• Maintain strong credibility by consistently delivering relevant, well-prepared guests and sharp story angles.

Team Managemnet & Scaling

• Initially manage two full-time offshore staff responsible for list building, research, and systematic follow-ups.
• Grow the team to be able to increase our scale
• Implement processes that deliver predictable output and eliminate bottlenecks.
• Establish quality control across volume-heavy operations.

Systems & AI-driven operations

• Own the PR tech stack (CRM, databases, tracking tools).
• Use AI agents, enrichment tools, and automated workflows to scale research, improve pitch targeting, and increase placement efficiency.
• Collaborate with internal teams to ensure messaging and positioning remain accurate across content and earned media.

Experience required

• 6–10 years in PR, media relations, communications, podcast booking, or editorial outreach.
• Experience handling many simultaneous stakeholders or clients - ideally in an environment with constant deadlines and output expectations.