Partnerships Director

About the Company

We are a dynamic creator of spectacular experiences across the sports and entertainment industries. Building on a world-class reputation and recent international success across London and Los Angeles, we have established a global office in London to develop and deliver world-leading projects outside the Middle East. Our ambition is to build a global portfolio of sports and entertainment properties, providing commercial, operational, creative and strategic expertise.

About the Role

As part of this growth, we are seeking a driven Partnership Director to help deliver our partnerships at our events, drive incremental revenues and deliver exceptional value across our clients and owned properties. Based in our Sela London office, the Partnerships Director is an integral part of the commercial and events team, responsible for leading the day-to-day partnership account management for a number of our key projects such as Premier Padel, Boxing and an exciting new football series. You will work closely with our commercial sales team and events operations teams to deliver the rights and assets to our sponsors and partners. This role requires previous experience in sport, either with a brand, agency or rights holder, and proven success in managing the day-to-day delivery of partnerships rights and benefits across sports and entertainment properties. The role includes responsibility for understanding sponsorship contracts, tracking rights and benefits, regular status meetings with sponsors and creating regular reports for the Sela International commercial leadership team. The number of partners that the role is directly responsible for will flex based on the size and scope of the partnerships selected but it is likely to be approximately five to six partners.

Responsibilities

• Account Management: Lead on the day-to-day management and delivery of contractual rights for an agreed set of commercial partners, organising and administering all sponsorship delivery activities.
• Creation and management of a clear and well documented Account Management Plan for each partnership under your management.
• Implementation of a proactive approach to account management ensuring you are planning well ahead of time.
• Develop creative activation proposals for commercial partners that align with their strategy.
• Track partner satisfaction via an NPS style survey and ensure that the partners under your management are achieving the agreed target scores.
• Be the central point of contact internally and externally for all activity relating to the commercial partners under your management.
• Ensure the digital, communications, marketing, ticketing and other internal teams are fully aware of, and committed to all campaign activities for your commercial partners.
• Working collaboratively with Marketing & Comms teams to design digital, social and content campaigns for commercial partners.
• Liaise with event organisers and other national federations to ensure implementation and delivery of commercial partners’ rights.
• Ensure the relevant systems that track the delivery of commercial rights are fully updated for all partners.
• Input all data for key partner contacts in Sela’s chosen CRM system.

Reporting: Deliver post event reporting to the partners that fall under your management to enable data driven decision making is used to guide the development of the partnerships. Input into internal reporting processes as required. Flag risks and issues early to enable plans to be put in place to mitigate risks.

Upsells and renewals: Identification of new commercial opportunities to discuss with commercial partners and up-sell, in collaboration with the Commercial Team. Involvement in contract renewal negotiations with current commercial partners in collaboration with the Commercial Team.

Stakeholder management: Support the planning and delivery of commercial partner workshops. Build excellent working relations with other stakeholders – Premier Padel etc.

Event Day Commercial Operations: Support in the inviting and hosting of commercial partners’ at Sela events and other third-party events. Play a key role in ensuring that everything runs smoothly with regards to partner rights delivery for across all Sela Partners, but particularly those that fall under your management. Represent Sela at industry conferences, networking events, and client presentations.

Budgets: Ensure budgets are managed to and that all finance process are implemented and adhered to.

Qualifications: 5+ years’ experience in account management in commercial sports partnerships, sponsorship, or commercial roles within sports.

Required Skills: A track record in managing partnerships and running creative campaigns for the activation of sports sponsorships. Strong interpersonal skills and relationship management both internally and with key client-side decision makers. Experience of presenting to key stakeholders of varying levels of seniority, adapting approach and style accordingly. An ability to understand client needs and objectives and then build plans that work hard to deliver against them. Ability to balance competing demands and requirements to find mutually acceptable solutions. Understanding of the sponsorship market and how sponsorship deals work. Understanding of conventional and digital and social media platforms. The ability to work on own initiative, both as an individual and as part of a team. Practical sponsorship account management/activation experience. Understanding and experience of management of sponsorship contracts. Experience of working with event organisers and national sports federations. Organised and can produce regular sales update reports. Good communication capabilities. Plenty of energy and creativity, with attention to detail. Comfortable working in a fast-paced, agile and evolving environment. Strong IT Skills, specifically Microsoft Word, Excel & PowerPoint.

Please note that successful applicants will be subject to a DBS background check.

Equal Opportunity Statement: We are committed to encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion among our workforce and recruitment and eliminating unlawful discrimination.