Head of Partnerships- 50 Best Bars

We are the leading expert in the global Food & Drink industry.

From manufacturing through to retail and hospitality - we provide the inspiration, insight and connections to power our customers' success.

Our specialists are deeply engaged in their markets and are recognised as the most trusted professionals in their field.

The 50 Best Restaurants portfolio is a global celebration of great chefs, great restaurants, and gastronomy. Each year, and across every continent, we create, connect, and celebrate the global community through the shared passion of gastronomy. We communicate via our events programmes, digital channels, and global communications & marketing campaigns.

The 50 Best Bars brand portfolio with its three annual awards ceremonies: The World's 50 Best, Asia's 50 Best and North America's 50 Best Bars is celebrating its 16th year. These events have their own partnership portfolio of brands primarily consisting of premium alcoholic beverage brands from around the world.

50 Best Bars shines a powerful and unique spotlight on the most memorable and exciting bar and cocktail experiences across the world, helping to shape the aspirations of millions of cocktail and bar lovers worldwide.

Due to the expansion of our 50 Best team, we have created a new position for a senior partnerships sales professional: a proactive, brand-focused candidate to join a close-knit team and contribute to the ongoing success of the 50 Best family of brands.

Position: Full time (35hr per week), permanent.

Location: Hybrid: Office based Crawley (2 days) plus additional day in either our Crawley or London Office.

Do you have a strong background in securing and delivering high-value sponsorship deals, and the tenacity to drive results? Are you skilled at building relationships with senior stakeholders and finding win-win solutions? Are you a proactive and creative problem solver with strong communication skills, ready to travel and work with top global brands?

If so, we have an exciting opportunity for a Partnerships Manager who will focus on the expansion of, as well as the retention of our extensive global portfolio of brands. The role will be supporting the Group Partnerships Director by ensuring targets, objectives, and expectations of the group are met.

What you'll be doing:

1. Proactively engage with global brands with a view to selling partnerships and branded content propositions for the 50 Best events and the 50 Best content platforms.
2. Work to deliver 50 Best global sales, achieving both individual and team targets.
3. Develop an ongoing pipeline of new partners for the events.
4. Build relationships with senior exec and VP level marketers, globally, to fully understand the brand's decision making.
5. Be a proactive, responsive, and strategic thinker in terms of resources.
6. Be able to articulate the 50 Best events and brand position within the hospitality market, as well as working with potential and current partners. You will be comfortable with a consultative selling strategy focused on understanding how 50 Best can help achieve and solve clients' business challenges and objectives.
7. Work with the relevant internal teams, including marketing, operations, and creative editorial to achieve optimal solutions for partners and 50 Best.
8. Negotiate and finalise annual and multi-year deals.
9. Developing metrics to measure ROI, KPIs and AVEs from partnerships.
10. Forecast, measure, and report the results to the director of partnerships on a regular basis.
11. Collaborate with senior management and other teammates to align our internal goals with new and existing partnerships.
12. Attending events and international travel.

What you'll need:

1. Extensive experience in commercial sponsorships roles.
2. Demonstrable track record of sourcing & delivering, at pace, multiple deals of meaningful scale (£150k+ investments).
3. Proven ability to find & convert deals with tenacity and dedication focusing on delivering results.
4. Experience in working with senior stakeholders to find win-win solutions.
5. Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills, as well as being goal orientated, assertive and a problem solver.
6. Excellent organisational, attention to detail, and time management skills.
7. Strategic thinker and passion for luxury, hospitality and premium food and beverage brands.
8. Confident, cross-cultural communication and networking aptitudes.
9. Familiarity with legal contracts, and CRM tools (eg. Salesforce) would be beneficial.
10. Foreign language skills (particularly verbal & written Spanish, French and/or Italian) will be highly beneficial.
11. Strong network of relevant global brands/agency contacts would be highly beneficial.
12. Exceptional written and verbal sales skills.
13. Digital proficiency with demonstrable skills in Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
14. Creative minded, pro-active and brand focused.
15. Willingness and flexibility to travel internationally.

Company Benefits Include:

1. 25 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays- increasing by one additional day after 6 years, up to a maximum of 30 days.
2. An additional day of leave for you to take on a cultural celebration day or on your birthday if you like. A day for you! At William Reed, we call this our "MeDay".
3. A volunteer day to take for supporting a chosen charity and giving back to the community.
4. Opportunity for hybrid working.
5. Contributory Pension.
6. Life Assurance Scheme.
7. Group Income Protection.
8. Enhanced family-friendly leave pay entitlements.
9. Wellbeing benefits, including: A health care cash plan, Employee assistance programme and a 12-month wellness calendar for company-wide health, wellbeing, diversity & inclusion awareness dates.
10. Cycle to Work Scheme.
11. Electric Car Scheme.

Why work for us:

We provide a supportive work environment and are committed to maintaining a healthy work/life balance for all of our employees. Working for William Reed means that you will be joining a stable organisation that is committed to developing its employees and brands.

We warmly welcome and encourage applications from talented individuals of all backgrounds and characteristics.

If you need any support in accessing this opportunity, please do not hesitate to discuss this with us.