Brand Partnerships Manager

Job Description

Job Title: Brand Partnerships Manager

Location: Corporate

Department: Marketing

Job Summary:

The Brand Partnerships Manager will oversee Wawa’s approach to partnerships, sponsorships, activations, influencer marketing, and talent engagement. This role will build the strategy for how Wawa shows up in the fandoms, cultural moments, and passion points that matter most to its customers, translating that strategy into partnerships and experiences that build brand relevance, deepen customer connection, and support business priorities. The Brand Partnerships Manager will oversee the Influencer Marketing Lead and the Sponsorships and Activations Lead, providing strategic direction and ensuring all programs work together as one connected brand platform.

Principal Duties:

• Develop and lead Wawa’s overarching strategy across brand partnerships, sponsorships, activations, influencer marketing, celebrity and talent relationships, and culturally relevant brand experiences.
• Define how Wawa should show up in key customer passion points and fandoms, including sports, music, entertainment, food, fashion, family, and community.
• Identify the cultural spaces where Wawa has the greatest opportunity to participate credibly, create value for fans, and strengthen brand affinity.
• Serve as the business development lead for third-party brand, entertainment, celebrity, athlete, talent, and property partnerships supporting Wawa’s brand and business priorities.
• Identify and pursue new opportunities with brands, entertainment properties, sports organizations, celebrities, athletes, creators, and other culturally relevant partners.
• Develop and pitch compelling partnership concepts that clearly articulate the shared vision, consumer opportunity, and value for both Wawa and the partner.
• Lead partnership negotiations and deal development in collaboration with Legal, Finance, Procurement, and other internal stakeholders.
• Shape the consumer story, creative vision, and activation strategy for partnerships, ensuring each program feels authentic to Wawa and meaningful to the partner’s audience.
• Oversee the Influencer Marketing Lead, providing strategic direction for creator relationships, talent engagement, gifting and seeding, campaign amplification, and real-time cultural opportunities.
• Oversee the Sponsorships and Activations Lead, guiding Wawa’s sponsorship portfolio and the development of distinctive experiences that bring the brand to life.
• Connect Wawa’s partnership, sponsorship, activation, and influencer efforts into cohesive programs rather than individual or disconnected executions.
• Provide leadership, coaching, and development to direct reports while establishing clear priorities, roles, expectations, and measures of success.
• Manage the overall brand partnerships, sponsorships, activations, and influencer marketing budget, including partner fees, agency costs, production expenses, forecasting, and reconciliation.
• Establish clear success measures and evaluate performance against brand relevance, reach, engagement, customer affinity, loyalty, traffic, and business objectives.
• Maintain a pipeline of partnership and activation opportunities informed by cultural trends, audience insights, entertainment releases, sports moments, and emerging consumer interests.

Essential Functions:

• Demonstrated experience building strategies rooted in consumer passions, fandoms, and cultural insights.
• Experience negotiating and structuring complex, multimillion-dollar partnership, sponsorship, talent, or media deals
• Strong understanding of how partnerships, sponsorships, influencer marketing, and experiences work together across paid, owned, earned, social, loyalty, digital, and retail channels.
• Strong business judgment and negotiation skills, with the ability to balance cultural relevance, creative ambition, brand fit, and value.
• Experience leading and developing team members across related but distinct marketing disciplines.
• Excellent leadership and problem-solving skills
• Excellent presentation skills
• Analyze information and effectively propose solutions
• Handle multiple priorities simultaneously
• Work independently as well as in a team environment
• Establish and maintain a working environment conducive to positive morale, individual style, quality, creativity, and teamwork.
• Organize, plan and manage projects in a timely and efficient manner
• Work collaboratively with cross-functional teams
• Willingness to lead as well as be hands-on with project deliverables
• Very high attention to detail
  

Basic Qualifications:

• BA or BS degree in Marketing preferred, MBA/MS a plus
• Ten or more years of experience in brand partnerships, sponsorships, experiential marketing, influencer marketing, or entertainment marketing
• Strong digital background with experience in social media and content platforms
• Prior supervisory experience
• Prior experience leading an influencer marketing, partnerships, and/or social media team
• Computer skills include MS Excel, Word, PowerPoint
• Proficiency in social media tool such as Sprout, Captiv8, etc.

Wawa will provide reasonable accommodation to complete an application upon request, consistent with applicable law. If you require an accommodation, please contact our Associate Service Center at [email protected].

Wawa, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. Wawa maintains a work environment in which Associates are treated fairly and with respect and in which discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated. In accordance with federal, state and local laws, we recruit, hire, promote and evaluate all applicants and Associates without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, familial status, marital status, sexual orientation or preference, gender identity or expression, citizenship status, disability, veteran or military status, genetic information, domestic or sexual violence victim status or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Unlawful discrimination will not be a factor in any employment decision.