Parnterships Manager, Sports & Entertainment (UK)

Introduction

IBM is putting technology innovation and consulting expertise to work in the world of sports and entertainment, transforming fan experiences. Across golf, tennis, motorsports, football, and music, our solutions allow our partners to deliver world-class digital experiences.

We partner with brands that represent the pinnacle of achievement, are culturally significant, and appeal to the passions of our buyers-while leveraging commercially available technology to showcase IBM's capabilities in authentic, meaningful applications that clients and fans can experience first-hand.

Your role and responsibilities

We are seeking a dynamic and results-driven Partnerships Manager to join our team. This individual will be responsible for leading, developing, implementing, and executing activation strategies that drive brand awareness, engagement, and revenue opportunities for IBM. The ideal candidate will possess strong marketing and partnership management skills, as well as the ability to collaborate across teams within the marketing & communications ecosystem to bring innovative storytelling to life across all client touchpoints.

You will be a core team leader working across Wimbledon and Ferrari programs based in London.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage partnership activations across paid, owned, and earned channels, as well as B2B hospitality programs, to enhance IBM's brand visibility and engagement aligned with IBM's strategic priorities.
• Work closely with leaders across hospitality, marketing, communications, and technical partnerships to ensure consistent messaging and successful campaign execution.
• Collaborate with a robust set of internal and agency partners to deliver best-in-class marketing and event activation plans, including advertising, social media, case study videos, immersive experiences, and event collateral.
• Track, analyze, and report on the performance of activations, making data-driven recommendations to optimize future efforts.
• Support the management of large-scale sports & entertainment budgets, ensuring the optimal allocation of resources, alignment with internal tracking and reporting processes, and spending that is on or under target.
• Represent IBM within the sports & entertainment partnerships industry to deepen relationships, knowledge, and development to continue to be on the cutting edge of client experience.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Bachelor's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Sports Management, or a related field (MBA or relevant certifications a plus).
• 10+ years of experience in partnerships, brand management, experiential marketing, or sports marketing, with a proven track record of successful campaigns.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Experience working in a matrixed organization with large, global cross-functional teams.
• Strong communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills.
• Excellent project management, with the ability to manage multiple initiatives and deadlines simultaneously.
• Data-driven mindset with the ability to analyze marketing metrics and adjust strategies accordingly.
• Experience with sports sponsorships, activations, marketing, and event planning.
• Creative thinking and an ability to develop innovative marketing solutions.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you'll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you'll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM's greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we're also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it's time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

For additional information about location requirements, please discuss with the recruiter following submission of your application.

Client-provided location(s): London, United Kingdom

Job ID: IBM-73629

Employment Type: OTHER

Posted: 2025-11-18T18:52:48