Sr. Director, Athlete Marketing

Red Bull•Santa Monica, CA

About The Position

Athletes are at the core of the Red Bull brand. Their achievements, stories, and contributions to sport help shape how people experience and connect with Red Bull around the world. As a leader on the Athlete Marketing team, you will define and drive the national athlete marketing strategy, developing programs and initiatives that strengthen the connection between our athletes, products, and brand. You'll identify opportunities to elevate athlete storytelling, deepen consumer engagement, and create meaningful impact across a broad range of sports and communities. In this role, you'll lead and develop a team while partnering closely with Athlete Marketing Managers (AMMs) and Senior Sports Marketing Managers (SSMMs) across regional markets. Through coaching, guidance, and collaboration, you'll help teams deliver exceptional athlete marketing programs that reflect both local relevance and the global Red Bull brand. By fostering strong partnerships and equipping teams with the resources they need to succeed, you'll play a key role in shaping the future of athlete marketing across the organization. You will be responsible for setting the vision, providing strategic direction, and ensuring athlete partnerships are leveraged in authentic and impactful ways that strengthen brand affinity, support business objectives, and reinforce Red Bull's position as a leader in sport and culture.

Requirements

Knowledge of sports management and sports industry as a whole
Min. 5 years sports marketing experience
Experience with multiple sport scenes and playgrounds
Knowledge of the action sports landscape
Direct experience with sports data/systems analytics
Experience with product marketing to Red Bull's target consumer
Experience in endorsement agreements – securing name and likeness rights and usage
Planning, organizational, and project management competencies
Can demonstrate a creative mind – openness to new scenes, ideas, processes, innovation, and possibilities
Entrepreneurial spirit – Self-starter with a focus on results and consumers

Responsibilities

Talent identification – work with your direct team and the region teams to identify new talent, amazing personalities, and opportunities that fit the Red Bull brand and ensure the best, most appropriate US talent is on the roster.
Lead efforts to develop creative concepts for projects, marketing tactics, and content creation. You will manage all phases of the process from ideation – feasibility to implementation.
Identify new playgrounds, athletic trends, sports media rights, innovations in the sports and athlete space, new technology, and applications.
Lead your team to develop custom branding solutions for individual athletes and sports where required/appropriate.
Guide ongoing innovation, design/visibility, application, and execution.
Ensure regional AMMs directly manage individual athlete relationships and discipline to accomplish expectations.
Lead the coaching of the regional teams to make sure they create marketing, communication, and performance plans for each managed athlete.
Oversee total USA athlete roster.
Improve tracking and evaluation systems for athlete performance.
Balance the portfolio with HQ counterparts in Austria.
Collaborate with internal partners to create reach and engagement metrics of athletes' brand image and product positioning for consumers.
Provide insight on their relevance to the business and brand positioning with target consumers.
Use NSF and other third-party relationships to communicate product efficacy through athletes to participants, fans, and consumers.
Work directly with your partners (Red Bull Media Network, Communications, Regulatory, Risk Management, Sports Marketing, Brand Marketing, and Sales) to align and achieve perfect product positioning and messaging through all appropriate internal and consumer-facing channels and tools.
Create streamlined athlete marketing tools for training, tracking, evaluating, reporting, and archiving major functions of athlete marketing.
Consider the landscape of media rights, social media, 'name, image and likeness' and how they pertain to athlete contracts and goals.
Manage national opportunities for relevant individual athletes and total roster with internal partners.
Collaborate with Red Bull Media Network, Brand Marketing, Communications, Digital, Consumer Collecting, and Sales to authentically integrate athletes into their plans.
Develop athlete onboarding process and material.
Set up each new athlete with tools for success and perfectly aligned expectations of what it means to be a Red Bull athlete.