Location: Manchester & Hybrid / Remote First (with in-office collaborative days and travel as needed)
Type: Full-Time (5 days per week)
The Opportunity
Are you a master of full-landscape media investment who knows how to bridge the gap between big-picture strategy and real-world results?
Open Partners is looking for a Partnerships & Investment Senior Partner to widen what "the answer" can look like for our clients. Working hand-in-hand with our Media, Creative, Strategy, and Data teams, you will build integrated, outcome-led investment plans that drive real commercial growth. In this role, you’ll bring the judgement to know when a conventional channel plan is the right route and when a bespoke media partnership will unlock growth that ad space alone can't deliver.
Your Role & Responsibilities
You will balance commercial rigor with creative partnership origination to deliver work that competitors structurally cannot offer:
Investment Judgement: Own the "which route" decision, building structured investment plans across the full media landscape and articulating with authority when a partnership beats a conventional buy (and when it doesn't).
Partnership Origination: Identify, shape, and negotiate bespoke opportunities with broadcasters, publishers, platforms, rights holders, and production partners - turning client challenges into co-created propositions.
Creative Collaboration: Partner closely with Creative from the earliest stage so partnership ideas are shaped by creative thinking rather than retrofitted, combining media reality with big creative ideas.
Reach Extension: Build integrated plans that extend partnership value across other channels - covering content licensing, versioning, paid amplification, owned distribution, and PR to ensure a single investment works several times over.
Strategic Translation: Turn complex strategic thinking into clear, structured, and compelling investment narratives that stakeholders - from marketing teams to C-Suite and private equity - can get behind.
Commercial Growth & Excellence: Drive new business wins and organic growth through measurement-informed plans, while establishing the templates, commercial guardrails, and frameworks to raise the bar agency-wide.
What Success Looks Like in 6 Months
Trusted Partner: You have built deep, collaborative relationships across Media, Creative, Strategy, and Data, establishing yourself as a key creative collaborator and the go-to partner for turning strategy into action.
Live Partner Network: You have mapped and activated a working network of senior media owner, platform, and production contacts.
Ideas in Market: At least three bespoke partnerships are sold in, live, or in production - each with a robust measurement framework and reach extension plan attached from day one.
Co-Intelligent Output: You are working co-intelligently with our HI / AI workforce, leveraging agency tools like Media Optimiser and RISE to sharpen audience strategy and channel prioritisation.
What You’ll Bring
Partnership Craft: Demonstrable experience originating and delivering non-standard media opportunities (e.g., AFP, branded content, co-productions, sponsorships, experiential, format integrations, or creator partnerships).
Media Owner Fluency & Negotiation: A strong, current network across broadcast, publishing, audio, OOH, streaming, and retail media, along with proven skill in structuring bespoke commercial agreements, value exchanges, and payment terms.
Rights & Licensing Awareness: Practical understanding of content rights, usage, talent, and exclusivity, and how those terms dictate how assets can be repurposed or extended.
Influential Communication: The confidence to simplify the complex and sell an ambitious idea to both a client and a media owner in the same week.
Outcome Obsession: Comfort working with budgets, ROI dynamics, and effectiveness evidence over award-bait for its own sake.
Our Values & Mindset
At Open Partners, we hire mindset first. It is the biggest factor of success in our business. If you do not have direct industry experience but possess a fierce growth mindset and transferable skills, we want to hear from you. We hold ourselves to three standards:
Smarter: Aim high, train hard, embrace next.
Faster: Learn fast, adapt fast, act fast.
Better: Think, say, and do what is best.
Ready to elevate your career and shape the future of media investment?
Partnerships & Investment Senior Partner in Manchester employer: Open Partners
Open Partners in Manchester is an exceptional employer that fosters a collaborative and innovative work culture, where your contributions directly impact client success and business growth. With a strong emphasis on employee development, we offer numerous opportunities for professional advancement and skill enhancement in the dynamic field of paid search. Join us to be part of a forward-thinking team that values creativity and strategic thinking, all while enjoying the vibrant atmosphere of Manchester.
