Position Summary
The Partnership Strategy & Activation Manager is responsible for leading and maximizing Busey’s strategic collegiate partnerships, with a primary focus on athletics and additional support across other key relationships. This role drives brand visibility, business development, and client engagement by leveraging sponsorship assets, NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) opportunities, and integrated marketing activations.This individual serves as the primary point of contact for Busey’s collegiate athletic partnerships, ensuring that all elements are strategically aligned and fully activated to deliver measurable business impact. The role collaborates cross-functionally with marketing, commercial banking, wealth management, and retail teams to translate partnership investments into brand growth, client acquisition, and community engagement.Duties & Responsibilities
Partnership Strategy & Management
- Own and execute the strategy for collegiate athletic partnerships and additional strategic partnerships
- Serve as primary liaison with collegiate athletics partnerships, media rights partners and other key external stakeholders.
- Identify and develop new partnership opportunities, including NIL initiatives, athlete collaborations, and experiential activations.
- Ensure all sponsorship assets are fully leveraged and aligned to Busey’s business objectives.
Activation & Marketing Execution
- Plan and execute integrated marketing activations across in-venue, digital, social, and event channels.
- Partner with internal marketing teams to develop campaigns that enhance brand awareness and fan engagement.
- Coordinate game-day presence, hospitality programs, and experiential marketing efforts.
- Maintain consistent and impactful brand representation across all partnership touchpoints.
Business Development & Relationship Growth
- Leverage the partnership to support new business generation and deepen existing client relationships.
- Partner with commercial, wealth, and retail teams to activate opportunities tied to athletics events and networks.
- Build relationships with university stakeholders, alumni, donors, and business leaders within Busey’s footprint.
- Support client entertainment and engagement strategies tied to athletics programming.
NIL Strategy & Execution
- Monitor the evolving NIL landscape and identify potential opportunities aligned with Busey’s brand and marketing priorities.
- Provide guidance on athlete partnerships that may enhance visibility and community impact.
- Maintain knowledge of NIL regulations to ensure any future activity remains compliant.
Performance Tracking & Optimization
- Establish and monitor KPIs related to partnership performance, including brand awareness, engagement, and business impact.
- Provide regular reporting and insights to leadership on ROI and effectiveness.
- Continuously refine activation strategies based on performance data and feedback.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Act as the internal connector across teams to ensure alignment and maximize partnership value.
- Educate internal stakeholders on how to leverage partnership assets effectively.
- Collaborate with senior leadership to align partnership efforts with broader strategic goals.
Knowledge of:
- Sponsorship structures, asset utilization and partnership lifecycle management
- Integrated marketing strategies, brand activation and experiential/event-based engagement.
Ability to:
- Connect marketing investments to business outcomes, pipeline development and client growth
- Develop and execute plans aligned with organizational and market objectives.
- Build, maintain and influence relationships with internal leaders and external partners
- Partner with sales teams and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Operate in a dynamic environment with evolving partnership opportunities including emerging NIL considerations
- Work effectively across cross-functional teams and drive alignment.
Education and Training:
- Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Sports Management, or a related field required.
- 5+ years of experience in sponsorships, partnerships, sports marketing, or brand activation.
- Proven experience managing and activating high-value partnerships.
- Experience working within collegiate athletics, media rights organizations, or NIL environments strongly preferred.
- Familiarity with the collegiate athletic ecosystems is a plus.
Compensation and Benefits
Salary offered is based on factors, including but not limited to, the job duties, required qualifications and relevant experience, and local market trends. The role may be eligible for bonus or incentives based on company and individual performance.
(Base Pay Range: $80,000 - $115,000/year)
Busey provides a competitive Total Rewards package in return for your time, talents, efforts and ultimately, results. Your personal and professional well-being—now and in the years to come—are important to us. Busey’s Total Rewards include a competitive benefits package offering 401(k) match, profit sharing, employee stock purchase plan, paid time off, medical, dental, vision, company-paid life insurance and long-term disability, supplemental voluntary life insurance, short-term and long-term disability, wellness incentives and an employee assistance program. In addition, eligible associates may take advantage of pre-tax health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts. Visit Busey Total Rewards for more information.
Equal Opportunity
Busey values a diverse and inclusive workplace and strives to recruit, develop and retain individuals with exceptional talent. A team with diverse talent, working together, is essential to Busey’s commitment of delivering service excellence. Busey is an Equal Opportunity Employer including Disability/Vets. Visit Busey.com/Careers to learn more about Busey’s Equal Opportunity Employment.
Unsolicited Resumes
Busey Bank, and its subsidiaries, does not accept any liability for fees for resumes from recruiters or employment agencies ("Agency"), without a binding, written recruitment agreement between Busey and Agency describing the services and specific job openings ("Agreement"). Busey may consider any candidate for whom an Agency has submitted an unsolicited resume and explicitly reserves the right to hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the Agency, unless an Agreement is in place. Any email or verbal contact with any Busey associate is inadequate to create a binding agreement. Agencies without an Agreement are requested not to contact any associates of Busey with recruiting inquiries or resumes. Busey respectfully requests no phone calls or emails.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Sports Management, or related field
- 5+ years of experience in sponsorships, partnerships, sports marketing, or brand activation
- Proven experience managing and activating high-value partnerships
- Knowledge of sponsorship structures, asset utilization, and partnership lifecycle management
- Experience with integrated marketing strategies, brand activation and experiential/event-based engagement
- Ability to connect marketing investments to business outcomes, pipeline development and client growth
- Ability to work cross-functionally and influence internal stakeholders
- Experience working within collegiate athletics, media rights organizations, or NIL environments
- Familiarity with the collegiate athletic ecosystem
Busey Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Busey and has not been reviewed or approved by Busey.
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Retirement Support — Retirement programs include a 401(k) with company match alongside a profit‑sharing plan, creating multiple employer‑supported savings channels. This structure strengthens long‑term financial security beyond base pay.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — An Employee Stock Purchase Plan is available, adding an ownership pathway that complements traditional retirement benefits.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Paid time off, paid holidays, paid parental leave, and volunteer time off are included, supporting time away for family and community. Flexible scheduling features in some materials further support practical use of time off.
Busey Insights
What We Do
As of September 30, 2023, First Busey Corporation (Nasdaq: BUSE) was a $12.26 billion financial holding company headquartered in Champaign, Illinois. Busey Bank, a wholly-owned bank subsidiary of First Busey Corporation, had total assets of $12.23 billion as of September 30, 2023, and is headquartered in Champaign, Illinois. Busey Bank currently has 46 banking centers serving Illinois, eight banking centers serving Missouri, three banking centers serving southwest Florida, and one banking center in Indianapolis, Indiana. Through Busey’s Wealth Management division, the Company provides asset management, investment, and fiduciary services to individuals, businesses, and foundations. Assets under care totaled $11.55 billion as of September 30, 2023. Busey Bank’s wholly-owned subsidiary, FirsTech, specializes in the evolving financial technology needs of small and medium-sized businesses, highly regulated enterprise industries, and financial institutions. FirsTech provides comprehensive and innovative payment technology solutions including online, mobile, and voice-recognition bill payments; money and data movement; merchant services; direct debit services; lockbox remittance processing for payments made by mail; and walk-in payments at retail agents. More information about FirsTech can be found at firstechpayments.com. Busey Bank is honored to be named among America’s Best Banks by Forbes magazine for the second consecutive year. Ranked 26th overall in 2023, compared to 52nd in last year's rankings. Busey was named among DiversityInc’s Top Regional Companies. The DiversityInc Top 50 survey is the external validator for large U.S. employers that model fairness in their talent strategy, workplace and supplier diversity practices, and philanthropic engagement. We are honored to be consistently recognized nationally and locally for our engaged culture of integrity and commitment to community development. For more information about us, visit busey.com.
