Senior Manager, Brand Partnerships

Museum of Ice Cream•Los Angeles, CA

22h•$145,000 - $165,000•Remote

About The Position

Museum of Ice Cream is entering its next phase of growth. As we expand into new markets and welcome millions of guests each year, we are building a modern partnerships organization that turns national and local brand relationships into attendance, brand visibility, earned revenue and memorable guest experiences. The Senior Manager, Brand Partnerships connects MOIC's national partnership pipeline to strong local execution. This role manages three Local Activations & Partnerships Managers, supports prospective partners as opportunities develop, and owns national partnerships from signed agreements through localized, on-brand execution across MOIC museums. We're looking for an experienced client and account leader who is equally comfortable guiding partners, leading a team, managing complex projects, and navigating cross-functional execution. You will translate partner objectives and deal terms into clear activation plans and lead the teams required to bring those partnerships to life across markets. You'll work closely with Brand Partnerships, Marketing, Creative, Production, Operations, Legal, Finance, and museum leadership to assess feasibility, manage partner expectations, and deliver experiences that are consistent, compelling, and operationally executable.

Requirements

7+ years of experience in partnerships, advertising account management/client services or integrated marketing, including agency-side experience in an account management or client leadership role.
Demonstrated people-management experience, including setting priorities, coaching direct reports, managing performance and leading a distributed or market-based team.
Experience managing prospective and active clients across discovery, scoping, expectation setting, execution, reporting and renewal or expansion conversations.
Experience translating national campaigns or partnership platforms into localized programs across multiple markets, venues or operating locations.
Proven ability to manage cross-functional projects across marketing, operations, legal, and finance without direct authority over those teams.
Strong project management skills, with experience building and running detailed timelines, budgets, and deliverable trackers.
Excellent partner-facing communication skills, with the ability to manage relationships, expectations and difficult conversations with professionalism.
Highly organized, detail-oriented, and able to manage multiple partnerships and deadlines simultaneously.
Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, evolving environment, translating deal terms into clear, actionable plans.
Strong relationship-building, negotiation, and communication skills.
Experience leading experiential programs, events or physical brand activations from concept and client brief through on-the-ground execution.
Fluency with AI-enabled sales tools and workflows (e.g., AI-powered lead scoring, conversational sales assistants, automated outreach and follow-up)

Nice To Haves

Experience in experiential marketing, hospitality, entertainment, or location-based consumer businesses.
Experience executing partnerships that span multiple markets or locations.
Familiarity with project management tools (primarily Asana)
Experience building partnership playbooks or operational processes from scratch.
A passion for playful, immersive experiences and the joy of ice cream.

Responsibilities

Support the Senior Director in managing prospective brand partners moving from discovery phase to scoping, feasibility assessment, proposal development and deal handoff, while maintaining a responsive and professional client experience.
Own the full post-close lifecycle of national brand partnerships, from deal handoff through final execution and wrap-up reporting.
Translate signed partnership terms and deliverables into detailed project plans, timelines, and workstreams across every function involved.
Manage day-to-day execution, tracking deliverables, deadlines, budgets, and dependencies to ensure every partnership is delivered on time, on brand, and on scope.
Proactively identify risks, blockers, or scope changes and resolve them before they impact the partner relationship or activation quality.
Serve as the connective tissue between the closed deal and the teams responsible for bringing it to life — Marketing, Production Design, Operations, Legal, and Finance
Coordinate execution across multiple markets when a partnership spans more than one Museum of Ice Cream location.
Align stakeholders on roles, responsibilities, and timelines, keeping execution moving and proactively addressing risks to client work or contracted deliverables.
Ensure brand, safety, legal, and operational standards are met at every stage of activation.
Act as the primary day-to-day point of contact for partners once a deal is closed, maintaining a strong, responsive relationship throughout execution.
Manage partner expectations, provide regular status updates, and proactively communicate changes or challenges.
Ensure the on-the-ground experience at each MOIC location matches what was sold, protecting the integrity of the partnership and setting the stage for renewal or expansion.
Directly manage three Local Activations & Partnerships Managers across Boston, Chicago and New York, including goal setting, prioritization, coaching, workload management, performance and professional development.
Translate national partnership concepts and commitments into clear local playbooks, deliverables, timelines and activation standards for each participating museum.
Guide the local team in sourcing and developing market-level partnership opportunities, and partner with the Senior Director to evaluate and prioritize them against Marketing and company objectives before moving into execution.
Deploy the local execution team against priority national and regional activations, ensuring each manager understands the partner promise, business objective, budget, responsibilities and definition of success.
Partner with General Managers and Operations teams to adapt programs to local audiences and operating realities without compromising the national partnership or MOIC brand.
Build and maintain post-execution recaps and performance reports, capturing what was delivered against what was promised.
Track partnership performance against agreed KPIs (revenue, attendance, visibility, guest experience, etc.) and surface insights back to the Sr. Director, Brand Partnerships.
Maintain a clean, current view of all in-flight partnerships, their status, and their execution timelines.
Identify opportunities to strengthen partner relationships and drive renewals, repeat partnerships, and expansion.
Create consistent intake, evaluation, handoff and execution processes for prospective, national, regional and local partnership opportunities.
Build repeatable playbooks and templates for partnership execution that improve speed, consistency, and quality as deal volume grows.
Identify recurring execution challenges and partner with leadership to solve them systemically rather than deal-by-deal.

Benefits

Competitive pay
Annual bonus
Stock options
401k, with match
PTO and sick time
Medical, dental, vision
Perks including Classpass, commuter discounts, employee assistance program, and, of course, unlimited ice cream
Employee development opportunities
16 free museum tickets per year for friends and family, with free entry for self
50% off retail products
Ability to advance within the organization