Partnerships Manager in Chelmsford

As Portfolio Partnerships Manager, you’ll be responsible for building and maintaining strong strategic relationships across the Essex County Council (ECC) contract, acting as the senior lead and primary point of contact both internally and externally. You’ll own the overall contract strategy, working closely with the Estate Manager and Estates Executives to ensure full delivery of BMO’s obligations, whilst optimising performance and value for both parties. You’ll also work with Operations and Construction teams to ensure effective, joined‑up delivery. This is a leadership role, heading up the Essex Portfolio team with direct line management responsibility for the Estate Manager. Success will be measured through the strength of stakeholder relationships, contract performance, and delivery against key KPIs.

What you’ll be doing:

• Lead the ECC contract, ensuring full understanding of contractual commitments and driving performance, optimisation and value across the region.
• Act as the senior point of contact for ECC, building and maintaining long‑term relationships with key stakeholders and influencing groups at all levels.
• Own and evolve the regional engagement strategy, ensuring consistent and effective contact across the business and with the client.
• Work closely with the Estate Manager, Operations and Construction teams to ensure delivery risks are identified early and resolved effectively.
• Lead on contract negotiation and manage any changes to contractual terms.
• Champion the wider Bauer Media Outdoor and OOH proposition, ensuring ECC stakeholders are informed, engaged and positioned as long‑term partners.
• Oversee data accuracy, governance and reporting across the contract, ensuring systems are fully maintained and compliant.
• Monitor competitor activity and market trends, feeding insight into the wider Portfolio Strategy team.
• Present regional strategy, engagement plans and performance updates to internal stakeholders.

Who are you?

• Experienced in senior customer or contract management, ideally within Local Authority or PTE environments.
• Strong strategic thinker with excellent commercial awareness and negotiation skills.
• Confident leader, with experience managing teams and driving performance through others.
• Excellent communicator, able to influence and build credibility at all levels both internally and externally.
• Highly organised, data‑literate, and comfortable working across systems such as D365 and Salesforce (desirable).
• Collaborative by nature, with a track record of working effectively across multiple teams and disciplines.
• Experienced in OOH or infrastructure environments (desirable, not essential).

What’s in it for you?

• Salary DOE.
• Participation in our Core Bonus Plan/Quarterly Incentive Scheme.
• Car Allowance or Company Car.
• Flexible working (this generally looks like 3 days in our offices and 2 days at home).
• 25 days’ annual leave inc. bank holidays.
• 2 paid volunteering days each year to support a charity or because that matters to you.
• Company Pension Scheme matched at 5% or 8%.
• Healthcare Cash Plan.
• Life Insurance and group income protection scheme.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Travel/Season ticket loans and a whole host of discounts across 100s of retailers.

At Bauer Media Outdoor, we are committed to treating everyone with fairness and respect, regardless of their race, gender, age, ethnicity, background, sexual orientation, disability, or any other differences. We work hard to foster an inclusive environment, a place you can be yourself. We support reasonable adjustment requests from candidates and employees. If you're interested in joining us to shape the future of out‑of‑home media, we'd love to hear from you.