Overview
Director, Brand Partnerships & Activations Jobs in Chicago, IL at New York Technology Partners
Title: Director, Brand Partnerships & Activations
Company: New York Technology Partners
Location: Chicago, IL
Role Overview
Partnership Management & Strategy
- Own and manage day-to-day relationships with sports and entertainment partners.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for partnership planning, activation, execution, and ongoing management.
- Develop and lead annual partnership activation strategies, roadmaps, and planning processes.
- Ensure all partnership rights, assets, and benefits are fully leveraged and aligned with brand goals.
- Serve as the internal expert on partnership rights, assets, and opportunities.
- Proactively identify future partnership opportunities, emerging trends, and innovative concepts.
Activations & Experiential Marketing
- Lead the ideation and execution of experiential marketing programs, including co-branded merchandise, hospitality experiences, VIP events, customer entertainment, athlete appearances, exclusive partner activations, and other high-impact brand moments.
- Maximize partnership investments by identifying opportunities beyond standard contractual sponsorship deliverables.
- Create memorable experiences that drive engagement, elevate brand awareness, and increase brand visibility.
- Integrate partnership assets into conferences, customer events, internal programs, executive engagements, and key brand initiatives.
- Identify opportunities to leverage athletes, talent, and partner platforms to support brand storytelling and integrated marketing campaigns.
Cross-Functional Leadership
- Partner closely with Brand, Creative, Production, and Leadership teams to ensure partnership activities support broader business objectives.
- Provide regular updates, strategic recommendations, and planning support to the VP of Brand and leadership team.
- Develop executive-ready presentations, recommendations, and activation plans.
- Collaborate with internal stakeholders to align partnership programs with campaigns, launches, events, and company priorities.
Agency, Vendor & Partner Management
- Manage and collaborate with external agency partners to develop innovative activations, experiences, and engagement programs.
- Oversee relationships with vendors, agencies, and production partners.
- Manage the development of swag, merchandise, promotional items, giveaways, and limited-edition experiences tied to partnerships and major events.
- Challenge partners, agencies, and vendors to bring forward fresh ideas, emerging trends, best practices, and differentiated activation concepts.
Event Execution & Measurement
- Oversee and participate in on-site execution of partnership activations, hospitality programs, conferences, and events.
- Ensure flawless delivery and exceptional brand representation across all activations.
- Develop and present partnership, activation, and event budgets to leadership.
- Manage external resources to ensure high-quality execution and strong return on investment.
- Establish measurement frameworks and success metrics to evaluate activation effectiveness, partnership performance, and ROI.
- Deliver post-event and post-activation analyses, recommendations, and optimization strategies.
Who You Are
- 8+ years of experience in brand partnerships, sponsorships, experiential marketing, sports marketing, entertainment partnerships, or related fields.
- Experience working at a sports marketing agency and/or brand-side supporting partnerships and experiential marketing.
- Strong understanding of sponsorship rights, partnership assets, activation planning, and experiential program execution.
- Proven ability to manage sports, entertainment, talent, athlete, or cultural partnerships.
- Experience developing and executing hospitality programs, VIP events, customer entertainment, partner activations, and branded experiences.
- Strong agency, vendor, and production partner management experience.
- Ability to develop budgets, manage external resources, and evaluate ROI.
- Strong presentation skills with experience creating executive-ready plans, recommendations, and post-program recaps.
- Highly organized, proactive, and comfortable managing multiple partners, workstreams, and events at once.
- Ability to operate strategically while also being hands-on with execution and on-site delivery.
Passion for sports, entertainment, culture, events, and building memorable brand experiences.
