Freelance Vice President, Influencer Strategy

 

Role summary

Lead athlete-driven partnerships across TWSC North America. Serve as the authority on how sports, culture, and brand objectives intersect. Build direct and scalable relationships with athletes, leagues, and properties.

The ideal candidate will bring a deep understanding of athlete servicing, cross-functional collaboration, and operational rigor, with proven experience navigating complex organizational structures and driving results. This individual will thrive in a dynamic environment, balancing business priorities, athlete needs, and innovation opportunities.

You bring strong expertise in sports and culture, along with a track record of managing teams, leading cross-functional initiatives, and building scalable systems. A mindset with commitment to operational excellence, and a deep passion for the sports industry are essential.

What you’ll do

• Own athlete partnership strategy that maps to brand, marketing, and business KPIs
• Translate briefs into athlete talent architectures, deliverables, and rights packages
• Source, vet, and negotiate pro, collegiate, and emerging sport talent, including NIL
• Navigate league, team, event, and marks usage guidelines with Legal and Issues leads
• Integrate athlete talent into PR, social, influencer, experiential, and retail moments
• Structure deals for paid, earned, and commerce outcomes, including affiliate and live shopping
• Oversee contracting, usage, exclusivity, whitelisting, and content rights across channels
• Lead brand safety, cultural fit, and compliance reviews with clear go or no-go calls
• Partner with cross-functional teams to ensure athlete talent is seamlessly integrated into campaign strategy, execution, and measurement.
• Build a proactive pipeline around seasonal calendars and tentpoles, including World Cup, Olympics, and league milestones
• Maintain senior relationships with agents, unions, player associations, and properties

What you’ll bring

• 8-10+ years in sports marketing, talent partnerships, or adjacent fields
• Proven record negotiating athlete deals that drive measurable outcomes
• Deep understanding of NIL, sponsorship models, usage of team and league IP, and approval paths
• Fluency in deal mechanics, from base fees to performance incentives and content rights
• Strength in risk assessment, reputation management, and crisis escalation
• Experience leading integrated teams and mentoring mid-level and junior talent

Is this you?

Be a driver of culture: Must have true passion and understanding of pop culture and are part of the community (be it music, gaming, fashion, food, internet culture, etc) This job is the intersection of creative, strategy, marketing, technology, content creation and production; your energy must be driven by your lifestyle. You must influence creative ideations: from the ideas presented, to the influencers selected, to the content created, all the way down to the language used in post copy.

Have high cultural competencies: Understand the role and importance of diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I) You must be culturally vigilant with the ability to understand, communicate with and effectively interact with people across cultures.

Have “Gravitas” in the influencer space and skin-in-the-game: Deep understanding of the influencer landscape is required. Proven ability to build, speak and grow relationships with change agents and cultural makers (celebrities, influencers, artists, thought leaders) directly or via their agents. You must be open to a public-facing role; willingness to speak publicly about influencer trends when opportunities present itself to the WS Influencer Team.

Know how to identify and manage diverse vendors and partners: in an industry where technologies (saas platforms, AI, managed services, etc) are popping on the daily, at high volume, no less, you must have experience working with RFPs and meeting with leading tech companies to understand their services and identify their uniqueness (and keep up with their ongoing changes in our WS influencer database)

Be ready to lead at any moment: working with your leads, you will learn to “step up to the plate” and lead effectively in the client’s and agency’s best interests while also helping to cultivate, mentor and coach mid to junior staff members on the influencer team.

Hustle: identify influencer opportunities (organic or new) to ensure influencer marketing continues to be a strong marketing discipline and revenue driver on your assigned account or at Weber Shandwick.

Think like a lawyer: you understand how important it is to be in compliance with best practices (FTC updates, platform requirements), continuously build our excel