Mandarin speaking Job - Partnerships Manager UK–China Commercial Partnerships - M

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The Skills You'll Need:

• Fluent in Mandarin and English
• Management experience in international education or cultural exchange programmes

Your New Salary: Up to £45k (with performance-based incentives)

Permanent Office based initially, with flexible hybrid working opportunities once passed probation.

Start: ASAP

Reports to: Chief Operations Officer

Working hours: 8:30am-5:00pm (with 1 hour lunch break)

Location: Liverpool

Travel Required: Regular travel between the UK and China

To be successful in this role, candidates must:

• Be fluent in both Mandarin and English
• Have management experience in international education or cultural exchange programmes
• Be happy to travel between the UK and China frequently
• Have solid business development experiences within travel and/or hospitality industries

What You'll be Doing:

• Own and drive commercial performance for UK–China travel programmes, meeting and exceeding revenue targets.
• Build and manage a robust pipeline of opportunities with schools, education groups, and institutional partners.
• Lead end-to-end sales cycles: prospecting, pitching, proposal development, negotiation, and delivery.
• Represent the company at international events, school visits, education forums, and trade delegations in the UK and China.
• Identify, secure, and grow strategic partnerships with UK and Chinese schools, education organisations, DMCs, and suppliers.
• Lead all commercial negotiations, including pricing models, margin structures, contracts, and long-term framework agreements.
• Maintain senior-level relationships with key clients and partners, acting as trusted commercial advisor.
• Manage escalations and commercial risk, working with operations teams to resolve issues without direct operational involvement.
• Identify upsell, cross-sell, and renewal opportunities across existing accounts.
• Develop and execute a UK–China commercial growth strategy informed by market trends, regulatory considerations, and customer demand.
• Provide commercial direction to China-based and UK teams without day-to-day operational management.

The Skills You'll Need to Succeed:

• Minimum 5 years’ experience in high-performance sales or commercial roles, ideally within travel, education, or hospitality.
• Proven success in complex B2B & B2C sales, international deal-making, and contract negotiation.
• Fluent in Mandarin and English (written and spoken).
• Strong understanding of the China market, including education, travel, and commercial practices.
• Comfortable working across borders, time zones, and cultures.
• Proficient with CRM and collaboration tools (e.g. HubSpot, Monday.com, Microsoft 365, WeChat).
• Willingness and flexibility to travel regularly between the UK and China.
• Legally eligible to work full-time in the UK.
• Able to pass an enhanced DBS check.

Preferred Experience:

• Background in international education, student travel, or cultural exchange programmes.
• Experience selling high-value, multi-stakeholder programmes.
• Existing network within UK or Chinese education sectors.
• Knowledge of safeguarding, compliance, and risk considerations.

We would be grateful if you could send your CV as a Word document. If your application is successful, you will be contacted within 7 days. We regret that due to the high volume of applications we receive we cannot provide feedback on individual CVs. Please note that we can only consider candidates who are eligible to work in the UK and are able to provide relevant supporting documentation.

People First is committed to increasing diversity and maintaining an inclusive workplace culture. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, age, marital status or whether or not they have a disability.

People First (Recruitment) Limited acts as an employment agency for permanent and fixed term contract recruitment and as an employment business for the supply of temporary workers.

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