Director of Strategic Partnerships, Sports Partnerships

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

About The Position

We’re building a Frontier marketing organization that learns faster, activates smarter, and delivers measurable outcomes. Our team establishes diverse partnerships with authentic technology implementations and integrates those partnerships across scale marketing engines. We prioritize outcomes over activity, embrace rapid learning loops, and collaborate across organizations and disciplines to show the potential impact of Microsoft’s technology solutions to our partners. To support this transformation, we’re seeking a Director of Strategic Partnerships, Sports Partnerships to help bring to life Microsoft’s partnerships – focusing on best-in-class technology implementation and executing exciting and impactful storytelling that showcases innovation and achieves business impact among the partner’s fans. In this role, you will lead and empower your team to deliver consistently against partnership objectives, ensuring that all activities are aligned, efficient, and meet established deadlines. Additionally, you will champion the visibility and understanding of partnership impact across the organization by communicating results, sharing learnings, and facilitating cross-functional engagement. Your experience in partnership management, project leadership, campaign execution, and go-to-market strategies will enable you to drive success, foster innovation, and maximize the value these strategic partnerships bring to Microsoft and its stakeholders. Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Public Relations, or related field AND 5+ years experience in sponsorship activation, integrated marketing (e.g., digital, relationship, social media, campaign), event management, marketing strategy, business planning, marketing operations, or related work experience
OR equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience managing partnerships or sponsorships, particularly within the National Football League (NFL) and/or Formula 1 (F1)
Team management or people leadership experience.
Campaign development and execution experience with a focus on measurable impact analysis.
Works with a customer-centric mindset, prioritizing the audience's needs.
Proven track record in project management, navigating varying priorities, tight timelines, organizational alignment, measurement, and accountability.
Skilled in communicating and collaborating with internal and external executives.
Excellent communication, storytelling, creative, and influencing skills.
Ability to manage ambiguity with persistent drive, guiding workgroups towards consensus and meaningful outcomes.
Experience solving complex business challenges, remaining optimistic and motivating teams to stay focused throughout the process.
Ability to operate and prioritize effectively in a fast-paced, highly collaborative environment, both independently and as part of a team.
Excellent attention to detail, coupled with the ability to maintain a high-level view.

Responsibilities

Team management and people leadership.
Manage external relationships with sports organizations ensuring effective delivery of partnership objectives.
Collaborate with internal engineering teams or agencies to deliver transformational technology with the partner.
Develop activation plans to drive awareness of partnership and build product consideration/adoption through storytelling and tech engagement.
Execute against rights and assets within partnership agreements.
Manage the development and execution of partnership campaigns and activations from briefing to partner engagement to delivery and reporting.
Develop briefs
Establish and maintain work back schedules
Manage creative reviews
Facilitate internal and partner approvals
Deliver assets to channels on time
Support reporting and insights delivery
Execute optimizations
Report on partnership activations and campaigns, mapping activities to key KPIs (key performance indicators) and identifying opportunities for optimization and greater impact.
Drive visibility internally of partnerships and establish regular cadence of engagement to ensure companywide utilization.
Manage a complex budget ensuring adherence to all targets compliance with procurement policies, and efficient use of resources.