Sky Media Marketing Program Manager (12 Month Fixed-term Contract

Role Overview

This is a 12-month Fixed Term Contract for ‘Marketing Program Manager, Sky Media’. Sky Media is the advertising sales arm of Sky, and the Marketing team is responsible for setting and delivering Sky Media's marketing strategy across the advertising industry.

As ‘Marketing Program Manager’, your role is to translate a specific department(s) commercial objectives into marketing plans and then deliver those plans using a capability layer of internal resource that covers content, digital & social, events and creative. The specific department aligned to this role carries a strong lead / demand generation requirement, targets SMEs and it is product led, unlike other areas of the business.

It also operates a distributed sales force based around the UK.

This is a role defined by influence rather than authority. The Programme Manager reports directly to the Head of Marketing, but all capability is managed by the Marketing Controller. Success comes from planning credibly inside a capacity model, building the relationship with the Controller, the capability and the department. You will be supported to deliver your marketing plans by resource that covers content, digital & social, events and creative as well as via dedicated project management.

The role requires someone who is comfortable communicating with senior stakeholders in the business, but just as happy to roll up their sleeves and work alongside capability and who finds it easy to build and maintain relationships that get the job done.

• Act as the marketing lead for the aligned department(s), trusted enough to be in the room when commercial priorities are set rather than briefed afterwards.

• Understand the department's revenue targets, its SME clients, its competitive pressures and its sales cycle in real detail.

• Be honest and early about what marketing can deliver and manage expectations before they become disappointments.

• Build a year-long marketing programme for the department with a clear commercial purpose, calendar, budget and defined deliverables.

• Plan inside the capacity model and treat any plan that has not been capacity-checked as a draft rather than a commitment.

• Sequence activity so that peaks are spread across the year rather than colliding with every other programme in the same quarter.

• Re-scope the programme quarterly (or as required) against actual capacity and current commercial priorities.

• Write briefs good enough that a specialist can act on them without a second meeting.

• Clearly define their capability requirements and accept allocation decisions without relitigating them individually.

• Work with Project Management to keep the programme's critical path visible and to flag slippage early.

• Agree how the programme's contribution will be measured before it starts, with the department and the Head of Marketing.

• Report progress and results to the department and into the marketing function on a consistent cadence.

• Be willing to stop activity that is not working rather than complete it because ‘it’s in the plan’.

• Share what works with the other Program Managers rather than optimising a single programme at the function's expense.

• Experience owning a demand / lead generation marketing plan or program end to end, including planning, delivery and reporting.

• Demonstrable experience delivering through people who do not report to you.

• Srong stakeholder management with senior commercial audiences, including the ability to say no and keep the relationship.

• Commercial literacy: comfort with revenue targets, pipeline and the mechanics of how the aligned department(s) makes money.

• Excellent briefing and written communication.

• Planning discipline — the ability to build a plan that survives contact with a capacity constraint.

• Experience in media, broadcast, advertising sales or a media agency.

• Understanding of the specific discipline of the aligned department – targeting SMEs new to TV advertising.

• Experience of matrix or shared-service marketing models.

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