Director, Strategy & Growth in London

Overview

Who We Are

: IMG is a leading global sports marketing agency, specializing in media rights management and sales, multi-channel content production and distribution, brand partnerships, strategic consulting, digital services, and events management.

It powers growth of revenues, fanbases and IP for more than 200 federations, associations, events, and teams, including major global properties.

IMG is a subsidiary of TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO).

IMG’s brand partnerships business works across a variety of sports including tennis, golf, football and basketball, connecting brands with valuable properties in global sport.

As this part of the business scales, we are building stronger strategic infrastructure underneath it.

The Director, Strategy & Growth sits within the Strategy & Growth team and focuses on developing frameworks, sector views, market intelligence, and intellectual capital that brand partnerships uses to scale.

The same infrastructure informs consulting mandates for external clients on sponsorship strategy, commercial model design, and brand portfolio strategy.

What we build for internal use becomes the basis for advisory work, and what we learn from advisory engagements sharpens what we offer the team.

This is a strategic role, not a sales role.

Your job is to make brand partnerships a sharper, more strategically equipped business, and to lead the consulting work that comes out of that capability.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

• Build the strategic infrastructure brand partnerships needs to scale.

Sponsorship valuation methodologies, sector frameworks, market intelligence, and repeatable approaches the team can use across pitches, renewals, and new business.

• Develop sector views (e. g., automotive, financial services, tech, luxury) that explain how brands in each category think about sport and where the opportunities sit.
• Lead consulting mandates in sponsorship strategy, commercial model design, and brand portfolio strategy.

Take engagements from scoping through to delivery, drawing on the same intellectual capital used internally.

• Win new consulting work in this space.

Lead proposals, develop hypotheses and investment recommendations, and contribute to business development alongside the wider consulting practice.

• Work alongside the brand partnerships team on complex commercial questions, where outside-in perspective and analytical depth matter.
• Work with the data and insights team to build evidence around fan engagement, reach, and brand impact.
• Develop IMG’s understanding of media and creative agencies and how they make decisions, both as a market-intelligence function and as input to consulting work.

Contribute to broader Strategy & Growth projects when brand or sponsorship expertise is useful.

• Knowledge and Experience
• 8–12 years in sports sponsorship, brand strategy, or commercial strategy.

Ideally a mix of advisory or consulting experience and operating experience on either the agency, brand, or rights-holder side.

• A genuine understanding of how brands think about sport. You can explain why a CMO would make investment decisions.
• Experience building sponsorship valuations, activation strategies, or commercial propositions for major sports properties or brands.
• Credibility with senior commercial people.
• Breadth across multiple sports, geographies, or brand categories. Depth in one area is fine, as long as you can work across IMG’s full portfolio.

Skills and Abilities

• Think about the bigger picture, identifying patterns across a portfolio of deals and explaining why a brand should care and benefit.
• Comfortable with numbers, including sponsorship valuations, market sizing, and ROI analysis; able to build the case.
• Good communicator who can write pitches, build clean decks, and present confidently to a senior audience.
• Naturally collaborative; the role requires building strong relationships across IMG and across teams.
• Genuinely interested in brands and sport with informed viewpoints about what is changing.
• Able to juggle multiple live consulting projects, longer-term frameworks, and ad hoc work.
• Experience at a sponsorship agency or in a brand sponsorship function.
• Understanding of media rights and how sponsorship and media strategies overlap.
• Experience with sponsorship measurement tools (e. g., Nielsen Sports, Gum Gum, Relo Metrics).
• Understanding of digital and social activation in sport.
• MBA preferred.
• Working Conditions
• This is a permanent position.
• This role can be based in IMG offices either in Chiswick Park, London, with some flexibility on remote working as appropriate.
• Working hours are 9:00 – 17:00, Monday to Friday.
• May be required to attend and travel to locations, including other IMG buildings and meetings.
• Unsocial hours may be required, as dictated by the demands of the business schedule.
• Adapting to the use of new systems and technology where appropriate.
• TKO EEO Statement

TKO is an Equal Opportunity Employer and complies with applicable laws regarding non-discrimination in employment.

Decisions are based on merit and qualifications, without consideration of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other basis prohibited by law.

Reasonable accommodations are provided where required.

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