Director, Strategy & Growth

TKO•New York, NY

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO) is a premium sports and entertainment company. TKO owns iconic properties including UFC, the world’s premier mixed martial arts organization; WWE, the global leader in sports entertainment; and PBR, the world’s premier bull riding organization. Together, these properties reach 1 billion households across 210 countries and territories and organize more than 500 live events year-round, attracting more than three million fans. TKO also services and partners with major sports rights holders through IMG, an industry-leading global sports marketing agency; and On Location, a global leader in premium experiential hospitality. IMG's brand partnerships business works across a variety of sports including tennis, golf, football and basketball, connecting brands with some of the most valuable properties in global sport. As this part of the business continues to scale, we’re building stronger strategic infrastructure underneath it. The Director, Strategy & Growth will sit within the Strategy & Growth team and focus on developing the frameworks, sector views, market intelligence, and intellectual capital that brand partnerships needs to keep scaling. The same infrastructure feeds into consulting mandates we run for external clients (brands & rights holders) on sponsorship strategy, commercial model design, and brand portfolio strategy. What we build for internal use becomes the basis for advisory work, and what we learn from advisory engagements sharpens what we offer the team. This is a strategic role, not a sales role. Your job is to make brand partnerships a sharper, more strategically equipped business, and to lead the consulting work that comes out of that capability.

Requirements

8–12 years in sports sponsorship, brand strategy, or commercial strategy.
Ideally a mix of advisory or consulting experience and operating experience on either the agency, brand, or rights-holder side.
A genuine understanding of how brands think about sport. You can explain why a CMO would make investment decisions.
Experience building sponsorship valuations, activation strategies, or commercial propositions for major sports properties or brands.
Credibility with senior commercial people.
Breadth across multiple sports, geographies, or brand categories. Deep expertise in one area is fine, but you need to be able to work across IMG's full portfolio.
You think about the bigger picture. You can see patterns across a portfolio of deals, spot where things are underpriced, and explain why a brand should care and can benefit.
Comfortable with numbers. Sponsorship valuations, market sizing, ROI analysis. You can build the case, not just argue it.
Good communicator. You can write a pitch that lands, build a clean deck, and present confidently to a senior audience.
Naturally collaborative. This role only works if you build good relationships with people across IMG. You're part of Strategy & Growth but your impact shows up in other teams.
Genuinely interested in brands and sport. You follow what brands are doing, why they're doing it, and what's changing. You have views.
Can juggle. You'll be supporting live consulting work, building longer-term frameworks, and picking up ad hoc projects at the same time.

Nice To Haves

Time at a sponsorship agency or in a brand sponsorship function.
Understanding of media rights and how sponsorship and media strategies overlap.
Experience with sponsorship measurement tools (e.g., Nielsen Sports, GumGum, Relo Metrics).
Understanding of digital and social activation in sport.
MBA preferred.

Responsibilities

Build the strategic infrastructure brand partnerships needs to scale. Sponsorship valuation methodologies, sector frameworks, market intelligence, repeatable approaches the team can use across pitches, renewals, and new business.
Develop sector views (e.g., automotive, financial services, tech, luxury) that explain how brands in each category think about sport and where the opportunities sit.
Lead consulting mandates in sponsorship strategy, commercial model design, and brand portfolio strategy. Take engagements from scoping through to delivery, drawing on the same intellectual capital used internally.
Win new consulting work in this space. Lead proposals, develop hypotheses & investment recommendations, and contribute to business development alongside the wider consulting practice.
Work alongside the brand partnerships team on the most complex commercial questions, where outside-in perspective and analytical depth makes a real difference.
Work with the data and insights team to build proper evidence around fan engagement, reach, and brand impact.
Develop IMG's understanding of media and creative agencies and how they make decisions, both as a market-intelligence function and as input to consulting work.
Contribute to broader Strategy & Growth projects when brand or sponsorship expertise is useful.