Sponsorship Manager - Football

The Sponsorship Manager will be responsible for managing various sponsorships across the Etihad Portfolio. The successful candidate will develop activation plans and strategies with partners, proactively work with key stakeholders and departments across the Etihad business and sponsorship agency, as well as creating detailed budgeting forecasts. The Sponsorship manager will be focused on how Etihad Sponsorships will create enhanced value across a number of key business objectives.

Accountabilities

• Drive marketing and activation opportunities by creating and implementing innovative marketing-driven campaigns and events that align with business objectives and strategy, competition analysis, research and best market practices globally.
• Own, maintain, and develop partnerships by co-ordinating weekly status meetings and ensuring up-to-date status documents for owned partner accounts.
• Deliver best-in-class activations / events by leading ideation, campaign planning, budget management, and post-event analysis to ensure successful partner activations.
• Create seasonal plans for partners alongside Etihad Sponsorship agency by developing and executing tailored seasonal plans that ensure business objectives are met, leveraging all available rights and activations.
• Build strong partner relationships by establishing and nurturing trust with partner organisations, understanding their industry, business, and marketing goals.
• Support budget and financial management by assisting the Head of Sponsorship in managing the departmental budget, tracking expenditures, and ensuring financial efficiency for partner accounts.
• Stay current with the sponsorship landscape by regularly reviewing sponsorship and marketing trends and formulating opinions on Etihad Sponsorship strategy.
• Assist in reviewing sponsorship proposals, formulating business cases where relevant.
• Co-ordinate with both internal teams and external stakeholders to ensure smooth account operations and suggest improvements when necessary.
• Measure partner success by collaborating with internal departments and sponsorship agency to capture and measure partner activities, creating case studies, and tracking success metrics.
• Maintain shared documents by ensuring up-to-date tracking of key documents such as rights utilisation, invoices, and partnership payment schedules.
• Present project and activation plans and strategies to senior internal stakeholders.

Skills and Desired Experience

• Proven experience of managing multiple client accounts, with a pride for relationship management.
• Ability to build relationships with strong networking skills.
• Experience in working in a fast-paced commercial environment under pressure whilst managing multiple projects simultaneously.
• Process driven with good attention to detail and strong analytical / research skills.
• Ability to follow key trends and apply and integrate them into a strategic approach.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills which are clear, concise, and accurate to internal / external stakeholders.
• Possession of a level of gravitas with the ability to confidently present business cases to senior management.
• Work flexible hours as the business requires, this may include attending events both domestically and internationally.
• Proven experience of managing multiple client accounts in a sponsorship or marketing environment.
• Educated to degree level or equivalent.
• Proven experience working within a similar Senior Partnership Account Management role.
• Ability to work independently and be self-driven.
• Proficient in Microsoft tools.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in the field of Business preferably with a specialisation in Marketing or Business Administration.
• A minimum of 5 years of overall experience required, with a minimum of 3 years of experience in marketing, events or sponsorship - including negotiation, contracts administration and service delivery.