Senior Partnerships Manager - UK

At MatchWornShirt, we connect global fanbases to the ultimate fan item: match worn and signed shirts from the world’s biggest athletes and brands around the world. We accelerate engagement, interaction and revenue by enabling our customers to access pieces of sporting history, whilst raising  funds for the causes that matter most to our partners. What’s more? We do it all live from kick-off.  

With more than 300 partners globally, we are the outright market leaders in our industry and are proud of the role that we play in encouraging consistent engagement between our network, fans  and customers. We see ourselves as innovators, both with the platform that we have created and the items that we feature on it – and we are constantly looking for new ways to surprise and delight our audience.  

We feature across many of the fundamental touchpoints within a footballing consumer journey and  enable our partners to achieve against a number of important metrics; commercial, local & global fan engagement, CSR, GDI and Club Foundation and Charity revenue. 

As our partnership model and network has evolved, we have been able to guarantee a significantly higher financial commitment to our partners, which has helped us to transition from a service provider to a genuine partner for the clubs that we work with. This evolution has strengthened our relationships across the board and enabled us to grow our business from within.  

The main focus for this role will be in nurturing and developing relationships with our UK network of clubs to ensure trust, positivity and profitability, whilst ensuring that the wider partnerships team is educated and enabled to deliver best-in-class partnership management at every level. Your focus will be on securing consistent commercial growth across our UK partnership network. 

About the team 

The partnerships team consists of 18 people split between our offices in Amsterdam, Istanbul, Sao Paulo, Melbourne and Dallas. 

Our team is an encapsulation of everything that MatchWornShirt is about and as such should be exemplary in the way that we work and manage stakeholders internally and externally. As Senior Partnerships Manager, you will be responsible for leading the UK team as well as working closely with the Head of Partnerships to support the growth and development of the wider team and the overall success of the department. You will also work closely with other areas of the business (marketing / BD / tech / finance) to maximise performance. 

About you 

For this role, you will directly report into the Head of Partnerships and will be a senior member of the company working closely with senior counterparts in other departments. 

Your roles and responsibilities include

• Management of specific high profile partners including Premier League teams 

• Direct line management of the UK Partnerships Manager and supporting them in their management of the UK Senior Partnerships Executive

• Full end to end responsibility for developing our existing UK partnerships

• Identifying and executing opportunities within our UK partnerships to maximise financial performance 

• Adding maximum value to our UK partners by building trust and strengthening personal relationships 

• Supporting the Head of Partnerships in developing the wider team – assisting them in day to day challenges and in their long term career development 

• Supporting the Head of Partnerships in establishing wider team processes and practices to ensure growing commercial and operational success 

• Identifying, engaging and developing relationships with stakeholders and brands within the wider relevant sporting landscape 

• Ensuring and enabling smooth cooperation between the partnerships team and other teams within the company  

• Maintaining a proper workflow and filing system for all your team members 

• Growing the partnerships team and facilitating individual growth and progression for your team members through regular meetings and performance tracking 

• Integration and development of new business concepts within the MWS group (Frame The Game, Fabricks etc) within partnerships network  

• Leading by example and being an ambassador of the company vision and values 

We are looking for the following skillset 

• Highly driven and an efficient communicator, you must be able to effectively articulate your thoughts, initiatives and feedback to the other stakeholders in the organisation 

• Able to work in the very dynamic (and often hectic!) world of sports across many different cultures and languages  

• Able to work efficiently on your own, but also utilise and enable the team, by providing them with a strong vision and positive leadership 

• You must be a team player and be comfortable in managing internal and external relationships at every level of the partnership hierarchy 

• Strong commercial acumen 

• Natural negotiation skills and willingness to take on more challenging conversations with partner counterparts at every level 

• An excellent understanding of our business and the market in which we operate is key: your passion must lie at the intersection of sports, fan culture and commercial growth 

• Develop and position new revenue and growth opportunities within our partner network

• Specific ideas about how you see a route to success for MatchWornShirt  

• Problem-solving mindset. For many of our partners, our concept is new and brings up a lot of questions. You need to able to proactively find solutions and build  trust by developing and  

• implementing consistent best-practise 

• Pro-active and self-motivating mindset and self-starter mentality  

• Can-do mentality. This may sound like a 'given', but it is an essential trait across our business.

• Proven track record in the partnerships space with direct experience in activating from either/all of a rights holder, brand or agency. 

• We always find a way to make it work 

Important qualifications & paperwork

• 8+ years experience in a sports commercial role

• English is your native language

• This is an office based role in Amsterdam, valid working rights for the Netherlands are strongly preferred

The fun stuff you will be working on when you join the team 

• Development of our global partnership strategy alongside the Head of Partnerships

• Regular travel back to the UK to visit Partners  

• Expansion into new sports and bridging of cross-cultural barriers  

• Work closely with the marketing team to effectively communicate how our partnerships work  Guide the team through a rapid scaling phase and building a solid structure whilst  maintaining the wider team’s identity and team spirit 

• Sculpting and nurturing a young and extremely bright international team and hiring new  team members to fuel the expansion plans 

What We Offer

• Informal and Sporty Environment: An informal, international, and sports-focused work environment

• Room for Initiative and Impact: Plenty of room for your ideas and the opportunity to make a real impact

• Convenient Location: Free parking and walking distance from a train station at our headquarters

• On-Site Gym: Access to a private gym with personal training that you can use anytime

• Hospitality seats: Enjoy a great match at one of our business seats at football clubs all over the world

• Commute coverage: Travel comfortably to and from the office knowing your commute is covered with 0.23€ per km

• All equipment you need: We provide you with a MacBook, mouse and keyboard of choice. Need anything else? Let’s talk!

• Pension Plan: An optional monthly deposit in our private pension plan, because we all want to live comfortably when we’re old(er).

• Company events: Multiple times per year we organise formal and not so formal events in our office and elsewhere, which you can later even out in the gym.

Our procedure consists of the following rounds:

1. Introductory video call with our Talent Acquisition Manager (± 20 min)

2. Assessment and personality questionnaire (± 120 min)

3. Online interview round 1 (± 45-60 min)

4. In-office interview round 2 (± 45-60 min)

Before the in-office interviews we request every candidate to complete a personality questionnaire, which gives us insight as to how your personality could add value to the team. 

If all goes well we will provide you with an offer letter and we can welcome you to the

team!

Grab this opportunity and conquer the international football world with us!

Don’t hesitate to reach out to Ruben Boerefijn directly.

Email: Ruben@matchwornshirt.com