Associate Director, Brand Partnerships

Overview

The Business of Fashion is seeking an ambitious, experienced and talented business development professional to help drive the growth of its brand partnerships globally. With your established background in sales and network of relationships within fashion, beauty and adjacent industries, you’ll play a critical role in the future success of the business.

This is an exciting opportunity to join an incredible team with the overall goal of becoming the global leader in the market for professional content and services for the fashion and beauty industries.

Who Are We?

The Business of Fashion is recognised around the world for its authoritative, analytical point of view on the global fashion and beauty industries. Our mission: to open, inform and connect the global fashion and beauty industries.

Serving members in more than 125 countries, The Business of Fashion combines independent, agenda-setting journalism with practical business advice, online learning, career-building tools and immersive events, powering positive change in fashion and the wider world.

Over time, our pioneering approach has made BoF the fashion industry’s leading source of business intelligence, and one of its most respected and influential voices, simply because you won’t find BoF’s original reporting, analysis and advice anywhere else. The Business of Beauty brings the same kind of agenda-setting coverage to the beauty and wellness space. Today, our talented team of correspondents, editors, analysts, engineers, designers, marketers and more numbers more than 100 people in London, New York, Paris and Milan.

Commitment to Diversity

BoF is committed to building a diverse workforce and we are proud to be an Equal Opportunities employer. All applicants and employees receive equal treatment regardless of race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation, gender, age, disability, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity.

Commitment to Inclusivity

BoF is committed to building an inclusive environment where everyone can bring their authentic selves to work and reach their full potential within their roles using a growth mindset. We are committed to creating an inclusive culture for our employees globally.

Commitment to Accessibility

BoF is committed to providing an accessible environment for all applicants throughout any stage of the recruitment process, by removing any barriers to ensure we offer a process that gives all of our applicants an opportunity to shine.

We will work with you to understand what adjustments you may need in the recruitment process to ensure you are able to perform at your best and we want to create a safe space to support this. Should you require any particular adjustment to be made, please let the Talent Specialist who is managing your application know when you are contacted for an interview, so we can consider how best we can support you with this. 

What We Need You To Do

As an Associate Director, you will be responsible for developing global partnerships that are significant in revenue terms, scalable in terms of their long-term potential, and strategic in the sense that they support the growth of BoF’s existing marketing products and events. This role will have a particular focus on sponsorship of BoF Events including BoF Professional Summits, BoF Crossroads, The Business of Beauty Global Forum, the BoF500 gala and BoF VOICES. Additionally, your sales will span digital advertising and strategic partnerships across branded content and the BoF Podcast.

As such you’ll get to work in a fast-growing business and have a direct, tangible impact on its success each and every day. You will conceive, plan and execute commercial partnerships that create a significant return on investment for the BoF community and for our partners.

In this sales-driven role you will be expected to leverage your existing B2B relationships as well as build new relationships with the most important companies in the global fashion, luxury and beauty industries. You must be a strategic thinker, who can balance the requirements of BoF with those of our partners.

In this role you will also manage one direct-report. As a people manager, you will work closely with them to support their professional growth and development, coaching their sales progression and skills to maximise business impact through revenue generated. 

Who You Are

You are a successful and highly professional business development representative within a premium media organisation and on the upward curve of your career. You have proven experience selling to B2B clients and will have a set of well established relationships with key companies either in, or adjacent to, the global fashion industry, as well supporting senior stakeholders in your current organisation to manage larger accounts. Your clients see you as a trusted and strategic business partner with a deep understanding of their business and goals. 

Entrepreneurial, and the ability to thrive in fast-paced environments, you combine strong commercial instincts, with a meticulous eye for detail and a high sense of urgency. Outside of that, you will have the following skills that will help set you up for success:

• Extremely well-developed relationship building skills and experience selling to senior executives
• Self-starter with a bias for action and initiative when faced with ambiguity
• A ‘can-do’ attitude, flexibility, creativity, and ‘outside the box’ thinking
• High performance under pressure and a strong sense of accountability and ownership
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, highly numerate 
• Robust knowledge of and experience implementing complex partnerships and advertising campaigns
• Experience of working cross-functionally in a very collaborative environment
• Resilient temperament, focused and persistent honing in on what really matters to move the needle
• Naturally curious with a growth mindset

In being successful in this role, you will:

• Identify and secure strategic partnerships that support BoF’s core marketing services and events (Advertising, Sponsorship, Podcast, Branded Content, Global Partnerships)
  Be responsible for achieving a personal sales goal, managing a sales pipeline and closing new business
• Leverage your existing industry network of senior executives to grow and up-sell BoF global partnerships
• Create partnerships that unlock commercial value and tap into new audiences, feeding into BoF’s strategic platform for the members of the global fashion community
• Expand BoF’s partner portfolio across key endemic B2B verticals as well as fashion, beauty, hard luxury, materials innovation and industry partners
• Nurture relationships with key stakeholders and integrate relevant BoF teams
• Work collaboratively with BoF’s London and US teams to ensure highest impact partnerships and commercial outcomes