Senior Director, Global Partnerships, Football Events

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 the National Football League, English Premier League, International Olympic Committee, National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, ATP and WTA Tours, the AELTC (Wimbledon), Euroleague Basketball, CONMEBOL, DP World Tour, and The R&A, as well as UFC, WWE, and PBR. IMG is a subsidiary of TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO), a premium sports and entertainment company.

Key Responsibilities, Accountabilities

• Serve as a key member of the Global Partnerships team, focused on developing and executing new business strategies to generate revenue for the IMG Football portfolio across the North & South America regions.
• Play a supporting role in driving business to other IMG properties within the Americas region.
• Liaise with international colleagues to help generate business for other global properties (Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa.)
• Develop relationships with key partners (i.e. Teams, Leagues, Federations) within Americas region.
• Lead internal projects as assigned by BU leadership.
• Travel and attendance at networking / industry events critically important to success in role. Some work, travel in evenings and weekends necessary.

Knowledge & Experience

• Deep sponsorship sales experience within the Football/Soccer industry across the Americas region. Demonstrated track record of success in sourcing new business opportunities and generating revenue.
• Strong understanding of the Football/Soccer market (Teams, leagues, players.)
• Experience in negotiating high value, complex, commercial contracts and global sponsorship/partnership deals across multiple platforms (activation, digital, linear, hospitality.)
• Demonstrated success in managing client relationships and strategic engagement.

• Experience developing business plans, initiating and driving sales, and tracking pipelines to ensure sales are delivered – all with limited oversight.
• Strong understanding of the APAC markets/brands, sales concepts and creating relevant interventions to secure and win business for IMG’s Football division.
• Extensive experience leveraging referrals, developing leads and securing meetings with prospective suppliers and partners through research, outbound calls and building an industry network profile.
• Knowledge of accurate forecasting and revisiting business plans regularly.
• Effective communication skills with a broad range of audiences. Experience in presenting partnership opportunities to and engagement of senior and c-level executives and targeted companies and brands

• Experience of the development of bespoke and tailored propositions to suit the needs of individual companies
• A thorough understanding of the end-to-end sales process and the customer buying process (including awareness of the emotional connections required by brands.) Possess an understanding of the rights tender/allocation process.
• Working knowledge of closing deals including negotiation of commercial terms and working alongside the legal team to negotiate and conclude contractual agreements
• Demonstrable knowledge of the digital landscape in sports, sponsorship activation across all platforms and trends on consumer behavior, to spot opportunities for new business.
• Well versed in the Global sports rights’ holder landscape and an understanding of the evolution of sports consumption habits.

Skills & Abilities

• Minimum of 10 Years of Sports Partnerships / Sales experience.
• Strong communications and interpersonal skills with the confidence to create leads in person and on the phone. Excellent sales, presentation and negotiation skills. 
• Spanish fluency is required.
• Strong decision making and awareness of the need for involvement of legal, finance and senior teams at the appropriate stages
• Ability to manage own performance at regular intervals and develop alternative strategies if sales plan/own goals are not being achieved
• Ability to work in a constantly evolving environment and keep focussed on objectives and bigger picture
• Collaborative approach, working in partnership with senior leaders globally and the wider sales team
• Ability to liaise and manage relationships with multiple stakeholders
• Navigates through customer politics. Handles