Senior Manager, Strategic Loyalty Partnerships

We’re looking for a talented strategy and business development individual with a customer-centric, data-oriented mindset and strong loyalty partnerships experience in the retail, fuel and/or financial services space to join our Global Loyalty team in Charlotte, North Carolina.  As we continue to grow our business, we are looking to dramatically expand our team, as well as our loyalty assets and capabilities.  You’ll be at the center of this transformation, working together with our team to help improve the loyalty experience for our customers to drive growth across the business.

We are looking for someone that is a relationship builder, understands the value of data to improve experiences, and knows how to create partner strategies and ecosystems within loyalty that not only drives value for customers but for all business partners involved.  We want to talk to you if:

• You live to find new business opportunities between companies that others overlook; using both creative and strategic skillsets to create new loyalty partnerships across businesses that unlocks immense value for each company and delivers unexpected, differentiated experiences for the customer.

• You are passionate about customer loyalty and experienced in retail - working across departments and organizations to build relationships, new partnerships and support for a common goal that ultimately leads to compelling and innovative loyalty programs, features and benefits for customers.

Our ideal candidate is:

• A Strategic Retail Leader and Opportunist – able to see business opportunities and customer value in ways others miss; implementing a data-first approach to identify and create unexpected loyalty partnerships between retailers aimed to deliver value for all parties.
• A Person of Action – displays a clear track record of not only identifying strategic opportunities but implementing and executing loyalty partnerships across multiple companies.
• A Relationship Builder – experience in building relationships with partner loyalty organizations in fuel, grocery, and retail in general, as well as internal stakeholders; leading the communication, negotiation and creation of new (and existing) partnership programs and agreements.

The role requires a high level of strategic, operational, and analytical skills as well as a talent for building relationships with both internal and external partners.  You’ll need to be able to build a compelling case for making things happen – blending art and science to influence and direct others.  Circle K has a collaborative, entrepreneurial culture, and our business reflects this spirit.  We are looking for someone who wants to put his or her own fingerprints on the organization and help contribute to the growth and direction of loyalty at Circle K in a meaningful and personal way.

Essential Functions:

• Define the loyalty partner strategy for Circle K and ensure it is aligned to the overall loyalty vision, roadmap, and business objectives.
• Design, evaluate and pursue new first-of-a-kind loyalty partnerships with various retail verticals (fuel, grocery, financial, ride share, etc.) that leads to increased customers, revenue and share.

• Develop a strong understanding of the client that includes their business drivers and strategies, competitive edge in the marketplace, industry trends, key strategic partner relationships, as well as key executives and decision-makers to ensure alignment with defined strategy.
• Works closely with loyalty marketing, operations, and member experience teams to design partner/coalition programs and benefits that support the partner company’s goals and Circle K’s loyalty strategy and objectives.
• Lead the planning and operational management for the loyalty partner portfolio. Tracks and reports on progress, working closely with cross-functional teams and partner organizations to resolve issues impacting performance.
• Implements processes, policies and defines approach to strategy achievement for strategic partnerships. Analyzes long-term impact of new or anticipated strategies and decisions.
• Works cross-functionally across legal, finance, operations, marketing, technology and data and analytics teams to ensure the loyalty partnership strategy is aligned with company and key stakeholder objectives.
• Leads communications, develops and grows strategic partnerships in a proactive manner, implements, and launches and coordinates the deployment/integrations and execution discussions with partners to understand priorities, assess business performance and expedite issue resolution.

Key requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in