Brands In Culture, Partnerships and Sponsorships Manager

Job Title: Brands In Culture Partnerships and Sponsorships Manager

About us:

With over 200 brands sold in nearly 180 countries, we're the world's leading premium drinks company. Bring your passion and use your curiosity as you explore, collaborate, and innovate to build brands consumers love. Together with passionate people from all over the world, you'll test new ideas, learn and grow, and unlock a brighter, more exciting future!

Join us to create a career worth celebrating!

Diageo Canada is the company's 6th largest market in the world. Diageo Canada accounts for about 26% of spirits market share and distributes an important portfolio of spirits, ready-to-drink (RTD) and beer brands across all provinces and territories.

Diageo Canada is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and counts about 700 passionate employees. With three production facilities (Gimli, Manitoba; Amherstburg, Ontario; Valleyfield, Quebec), Diageo is one of the major producers of spirits in Canada.

• 12 million cases of spirits are produced in Canada every year
• More than 200 SKUs are produced in Canada
• Diageo Canada contributes about $39M to the federal government fiscal revenues and spends more than $300 million in goods and services from companies in Canada every year, including more than 5.5 million bushels of corn, barley, and rye
• Canada is the home of Diageo's Crown Royal Whisky

About the role:

The newly designed Brands in Culture role will own sports, music and entertainment partnerships is a vital growth driver in order to be competitive within premium spirits and beer categories. Culture is everything and everywhere and so much more than a press release or influencer partnership. Culture is informing, influencing and connecting our consumers, influencing their lives.

Diageo Canada is looking for an individual who is connected to the Canadian marketplace and understands deeply the cultural tastemakers, insiders, connectors and creators across sports, music and entertainment who can lead current partners and sponsors as well as actively seek out national opportunities that will drive energy, awareness and love around our brands for continued growth.

Drinks Brands are very often "built in culture". Having Diageo brands talked about, recommended and perceived as "the brands to be seen with" remains critical. Many of our brands have been around for a long time, and a large part of that success is the ability to keep our brands relevant throughout all points of culture.

Role Responsibilities:

• An inspirational leader who will help drive breakthrough performance for the Canadian business through the development, management and implementation of comprehensive sports, music and entertainment strategies
• All strategies the Sr. Brand Manager develops will support business objectives for brand marketing - notably shareholder value creation, volume, share growth, brand advocacy & consumer awareness and be fully integrated across the business

• Responsible for leading the strategy for the ongoing thought leadership, negotiation and management of all brand led partnerships and sponsorships the brand marketing team leads across Canada, including improving existing sponsorships, but also a view towards new partnerships and opportunities
• Ensure existing assets are fully enhanced in breakthrough ways and in adherence with necessary protocols and regulations.
• Negotiate all major brand sponsorship deals, ensuring value is returned on investment made. Expert level experience with contract negotiations is a must
• Lead and strengthen relationships with teams (internally and externally), leagues, platforms, industry leading execs and more to maximize return on investment for Diageo brands
• Effectively manage external agencies and 3rd parties for best-in-class ideation, implementation and delivery of results within budget and scope of work
• Delivery of tangible business results, responsible for objective setting and measurement & evaluation process across the portfolio
• Maintain a strong internal control and compliance environment consistent with the Diageo Marketing Code and Diageo compliance policies.

• Requires an expert understanding of the structure and workings of the sports, music and entertainment landscape in Canada
• Strong influencing and negotiating capabilities, ability to engage and align senior partners internally
• Strong knowledge of the intricacies and networks within the various industries to generate insights and connectivity that will be able to assess the impact for Diageo
• Strong relationships with rights owners and agencies and the ability to grasp legalities of all assets and rights purchased to maximize value
• This role requires expertise in both the Diageo Leadership and Marketing functional capabilities in inspiring and influencing collaboration, support and coordination across multiple internal and external partner groups. This would include alignment across key business units (Marketing, Innovation, Media, Corporate Relations, Procurement, Legal, Customer Planning and Activation)

• Growing our brands' awareness and consideration through the development of a clear strategy is integral to this role
• Work closely with Diageo commercial team across channels and geographies on both local and national assets to ensure we are making the most of our contracts and relationships to maintain the best possible corporate reputation for Diageo
• Deep consumer understanding and cultural intelligence in service of building our brands in culture
• Exquisite attention to detail
• Work in partnership with legal and procurement on all contract negotiation
• Help drive recruitment into Diageo brands as measured by penetration data
• Help build awareness and equity of core Diageo brands as measured by brand health scores

Experience/skills required:

• 10+ plus years of relevant experience with a proven ability to improve return on investment
• Experience with budget management and competitive analysis
• Experience in digital media and social communications platforms
• Authentic communicator with experience working successfully across multiple partners
• Experience working in a highly regulated industry is preferred but not necessary

• Undergraduate degree - degree in marketing, business management, communications desirable.

Flexible Working Statement:

Flexibility is key to our success. Talk to us about what flexibility means to you so that you're supported to manage your wellbeing and balance your priorities from day one.

Diversity statement:

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this.

We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you'll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You'll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.

Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.

Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you.

If you require a reasonable adjustment, please ensure that you capture this information when you submit your application

Client-provided location(s): Toronto, Canada

Job ID: Diageo-JR1116065

Employment Type: FULL_TIME

Posted: 2025-07-30T23:57:54