Brand Partnerships Lead

About the role

The Telegraph is constantly evolving its reader-first and subscriptions-first model and how we work with advertisers and commercial partners as a result. We believe that traditional branded content is becoming an outdated practise for editorial businesses, and that instead of responding reactively to all briefs we should be building exciting new types of partnerships founded on true editorial alignment, 1st party data, audience insights, and work with brands long term to achieve their business objectives, rather than focusing on short term KPIs.

To drive better results for brands and relevancy for readers we have therefore transformed our partnerships offering to focus on Editorial Integrated Partnerships (EIPs). EIPs align brands with our core editorial initiatives. We place brands at the heart of our paid-for content, and focus on building partnerships founded on in-depth audience insights, that have real impact and deliver value for the client, the reader and The Telegraph.

These partnerships do this by driving brilliant results for our clients, creating a better advertising environment and boosting subscriptions. This person will join a multi-award winning commercial organisation.

The Brand Partnerships Lead will be responsible for proactively and reactively pitching and growing partnership revenue from a diverse client and agency portfolio, and as part of a team be responsible for hitting quarterly partnerships revenue targets. You will work alongside other Brand Partnership Leads to cover the ground of key agencies and clients to create and source opportunities with best in market ideas and pitches.

You will be responsible for initiating, writing, pitching, negotiating and closing complex partnerships - and managing internal stakeholders with excellent communication and organisational skills. This role involves taking the lead on initiating and growing editorially aligned commercial collaborations while delivering best in class content executions built around leading creative ideas and strategy.

• The Brand Partnerships lead is responsible for managing a key set of agencies and clients (alongside the client team) and driving relationships to win business
• Ensuring we are front of mind for all core brands and opportunities by managing excellent relationships at every client level
• Joint responsibility for achieving the EIP teams revenue targets
• Effectively managing your own pipeline and forecasting to the team
• To effectively communicate to all stakeholders internally, meeting deadlines and managing process in a timely manner
• Innovating and creating new propositions that fit TMG’s objectives and editorial product
• Leading proactive pitching of relevant propositions across external partners including an allocated patch of tier one clients and agencies; creating new relevant opportunities
• Championing best practices with a brilliant reputation internally and externally for pitching the best ideas and being able to deliver
• Collaborating with the rest of the partnerships, digital and innovation team to ensure we are innovators and thought leaders in the market

• Experience of working in a similar organisation (media owner, media agency or creative agency) proactively pitching and closing high-value cross-media campaigns
• Demonstrable innovative approach, ability to pivot approach to support TMG’s editorial and subscriber strategy; appetite for transformation; comfortable challenging and taking a premium publisher thought leadership position in the market
• Extensive agency and client contacts (client contacts from Business, Lifestyle, Luxury, or Sport sectors would be an advantage)
• Proven exceptional sales ability to senior level clients and agencies
• Ability to sell across different categories and passion points, with Travel, Retail, Business & Finance being core commercial areas of focus
• Outstanding organisational and time management skills while being able to work to tight deadlines and a fluid workflow
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills demonstrated in your previous pitch work, presentations and major pitch win rates.
• Experience delivering high-value pitches across disciplines (editorial, advertising, design) and multimedia (with a focus on digital)
• Grasp of the power of insight and research, and numerically competent
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a good communicator with an eye for detail

The nature of our industry means life at the Telegraph Media Group is fast-paced, demanding, and interesting. We also want it to be rewarding for everyone who works here by creating a suite of benefits that contribute to lifestyle choices and leisure activities. From dynamic working opportunities, medical cover, and parental leave (six months fully paid maternity leave and enhanced paternity/partner leave), to life assurance and season ticket loans, you can choose from a range of flexible benefits, designed to support your lifestyle and help you achieve a healthy work-life…