Commercial Sales & Strategy Manager in Cardiff

The Commercial Sales & Strategy Manager will be responsible for identifying commercial opportunities and delivering sales processes that result in commercial growth for the WRU across Partnerships and Hospitality. This role will involve hands-on selling activity and will support the Head of Commercial in supporting the strategic development of the pipeline. The role will work collaboratively across the commercial department supporting both Partnership sales and Hospitality sales.

Salary: Competitive, plus bonus

Closing Date: Sunday 6th September 2026

The Person

• Proven sales and business development experience that has led to commercial growth.
• Experienced in pipeline management and prioritising opportunities.
• Previous consulting and/or commercial strategy experience is desirable, gained at an agency, professional services company or equivalent in-house department.
• Demonstrable problem-solving ability with a strong will to be able to diagnose challenging issues and present viable solutions.
• Ability to balance competing demands.
• Strong data analysis skills.
• Ability to build presentations that tell a clear and coherent sales story, are easy to digest and insightful.
• Demonstrable experience of developing relationships with key stakeholders.
• Commercial acumen with experience of commercial/sponsorship rights.
• Experience of presenting and engaging with a variety of levels of stakeholders.
• Ability to influence at all levels.
• Experience of contract negotiation and contract management.
• Excellent IT skills, specifically Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills are essential.
• Strong interpersonal and relationship management skills.
• Results orientated, with experience of working to targets focusing on revenue growth.
• Ability to communicate and work through the medium of Welsh is desirable.

The Role

Partnerships Sales:

• Work collaboratively with the Commercial team to identify open and target categories.
• Leverage industry sources, data, desktop research and available tools to develop the sales pipeline for target categories.
• Play a proactive networking role in the local and national market to build new relationships and identify sales opportunities.
• Identify and document available inventory and new/potential inventory.
• Build and value commercial packages to take to market.
• Utilise data & insight to build compelling sales materials and narratives.
• Build and run RFP processes to drive competitive commercial processes.
• Prepare and deliver direct outreach to target prospects.
• Leverage the required systems and processes to track the sales pipeline in real time and capture all contact details for sales targets (e.g. management of a B2B database for lead generation).
• Prepare sales materials for key meetings.
• Create bespoke commercial partnership proposals.
• Play the lead role in the sales process for certain inventory, packages, and categories, whilst playing a support role on others.
• Ensure Partnerships Sales team has the required data to support sales meetings.
• Support the Partnerships Sales team through negotiation and contracting.
• Support with smooth and detailed handover of sold opportunities to the Partnerships team to enable them to deliver the contracted rights.

Hospitality Sales:

• Support the Hospitality Sales team to build and maintain a healthy and vibrant sales pipeline to convert sales leads into new business to ensure the agreed budgets and targets are met.
• Spend an agreed portion of your time on direct outreach to support the Hospitality Sales team and process, particularly during peak selling periods.

Strategic Commercial Projects:

• Deploy a core consulting skillset to help the team solve complex commercial problems, build trusted relationships and deliver actionable results that drive the business forward.
• Deliver structured problem solving, data analysis and modelling to enable clear and concise communication and presentation of ideas.
• Drive projects from inception through to implementation.
• Clearly document and analyse projects, concepts and strategies in Microsoft PowerPoint, Word and Excel to enable the business to make data driven and strategy led decisions quickly and seamlessly.

Commercial Research & Insights:

• In collaboration with the Partnerships team, contribute to the research and insights program ensuring the team has access to the required research and data and that it is presented in an insightful manner to enable data driven selling.

WRU Requirements

• The WRU require that individuals are proficient in IT skills, specifically Microsoft packages.
• Excellent written and verbal communications are essential, along with the ability to build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Ability to communicate through the medium of Welsh and a Valid UK Driver's License is desirable.

The Perks

• As a permanent member of the WRU Group, you will have access to our full range of employee benefits, including:
• Salary Sacrifice Pension (5% employee contribution, matched by WRU)
• Life assurance scheme
• WRU Group Ticket Allocation (in line with ticketing policy)
• One additional paid day off (birthday leave)
• Employee assistance programme
• Team Tactics – hybrid working arrangements
• Free stadium parking and gym
• WRU Group store and tour discounts
• WRU Group partnership offers
• Eye Care Voucher Scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme

Our Values

The WRU Group are committed to developing a culture whereby all employees are equally valued and respected. Our aims, together with our vision and mission, are underpinned by our core values and beliefs which embrace: Integrity, Excellence, Success, Courage, Family & Humour.

Inclusion At The WRU

The WRU Group are committed to building diverse, high-performing and engaged teams across Welsh Rugby. We are ambitious about providing a people first culture where everyone can belong, be heard and respected.

Diversity monitoring

We know that we deliver better services when our workforce reflects the full range of backgrounds and experiences in the society we serve. To continue to do this we need your help in filling out a short monitoring form. None of the information you provide will be visible as part of your application. It will only be used anonymously to monitor the inclusivity of our selection processes. You can select 'prefer not to say’ if you would rather not answer any question.