Sr. Manager, Influencer

Job Purpose

At Panera, influencer marketing plays a critical role in bringing our brand to life in culture, building meaningful connections with consumers, and driving conversation that translates into business impact.

As Sr. Manager, Influencer Marketing, you'll lead the strategy, development, and execution of creator-led campaigns that make Panera impossible to ignore. You'll own Panera's influencer marketing approach, lead our influencer agency, and build impactful partnerships that drive cultural relevance, brand affinity, and measurable business results.

This role is ideal for a strategic influencer marketer with bold creative instincts and a passion for breakthrough ideas. You're deeply immersed in the creator economy, know how to identify talent and cultural opportunities, and challenge agency partners to push creative boundaries. You think beyond traditional influencer campaigns, turning unexpected partnerships and culturally relevant ideas into work that earns attention, sparks conversation, and drives meaningful brand impact.

Location: Newton, MA moving to Weston, MA July 2027

Duties & Responsibilities

The primary responsibilities of this job include, but are not limited to:

1. Influencer Marketing Strategy & Campaign Development

· Lead the development and execution of Panera's influencer marketing strategy, ensuring programs ladder up to broader brand priorities, campaign objectives, and business goals.

· Develop comprehensive influencer campaigns that drive brand awareness, cultural relevance, engagement, consideration, and conversion.

· Translate larger brand campaigns and product launches into compelling, creator-led ideas that feel authentic to social platforms and audiences.

· Identify opportunities to leverage influencers across paid, earned, and owned channels to maximize campaign reach and impact.

· Develop innovative creator partnerships and social-first activations designed to break through culture, generate conversation, and build brand affinity.

· Build a diversified influencer approach spanning celebrity talent, macro and micro influencers, emerging creators, and niche communities.

· Identify opportunities for always-on influencer engagement and long-term creator relationships that build sustained brand advocacy.

· Maintain a strong pulse on the creator economy, emerging platforms, cultural trends, and evolving consumer behaviors to proactively bring new opportunities forward.

2. Influencer Agency Management & Campaign Execution

· Serve as the primary day-to-day lead for Panera's influencer marketing agency, overseeing campaign development, creator recommendations, execution, and reporting.

· Lead agency briefing processes, providing clear strategic direction, creative expectations, campaign objectives, and measurable KPIs.

· Manage influencer campaigns from concept through execution, ensuring programs are delivered on time, within budget, and aligned with brand standards.

· Oversee creator identification, vetting, outreach, negotiations, contracting, content development, approvals, and publishing in partnership with agency teams.

· Provide strategic and creative feedback on influencer concepts and content to ensure deliverables feel authentic to the creator while delivering against Panera's objectives.

· Manage campaign timelines, deliverables, budgets, usage rights, exclusivity terms, and contractual obligations.

· Hold agency partners accountable for delivering high-quality work, proactive thinking, operational excellence, and strong campaign results.

· Identify opportunities to improve agency processes, efficiencies, and overall effectiveness of influencer marketing investments.

3. Cross-Functional Collaboration & Integrated Marketing

· Partner closely with Brand Marketing, Organic Social, PR, Media, Creative, Culinary, and other cross-functional teams to ensure influencer programs are integrated into broader marketing efforts.

· Collaborate with paid media teams to identify opportunities to amplify high-performing influencer content through paid social, creator whitelisting, and partnership ads.

· Work with PR and Social teams to integrate creators into larger brand campaigns, experiential activations, PR moments, and other marketing initiatives.

· Partner with internal stakeholders to ensure alignment on campaign objectives, messaging, creative development, and executional timelines.

· Provide an influencer-first perspective during campaign planning, identifying opportunities for creators to amplify brand storytelling and drive cultural relevance.

· Effectively communicate influencer strategies, recommendations, campaign updates, and results to internal stakeholders and senior leadership.

4. Performance & Optimization:

· Establish clear KPIs and measurement frameworks to evaluate influencer campaign effectiveness against brand and business objectives.

· Oversee agency reporting and campaign recaps, ensuring results translate into actionable insights and recommendations.

· Analyze creator performance, platforms, content engagement, reach, impressions, audience sentiment, and other relevant metrics to evaluate campaign and partnership impact.

· Partner with Media and Consumer Insights teams to understand influencer performance within the broader marketing ecosystem.

· Continuously optimize influencer strategies, creator selection, investment allocation, and creative approaches based on performance insights.

· Monitor competitive influencer activity, industry benchmarks, and emerging best practices to identify opportunities for innovation and improvement.

· Present clear, compelling campaign results and strategic recommendations to senior leadership, connecting influencer activity to broader brand and business impact.

Qualifications (Education & Experience)

Qualifications include:

· 7–10+ years of experience in influencer marketing, social media, brand marketing, or integrated marketing, preferably within a consumer-facing brand or agency.

· Demonstrated experience leading large-scale influencer marketing campaigns from strategy through execution, with measurable results.

· Deep understanding of the creator economy, influencer landscape, talent partnerships, and emerging social platforms.

· Proven ability to identify and evaluate creators based on audience relevance, cultural influence, brand alignment, content quality, and performance potential.

· Experience managing influencer budgets, talent negotiations, contracts, content usage rights, and paid amplification.

· Strong creative instincts and the ability to recognize compelling, culturally relevant content that drives engagement and conversation.

· Demonstrated ability to translate broader business objectives into actionable influencer strategies and compelling creator briefs.

· Strong analytical skills with experience evaluating influencer performance, interpreting campaign data, and making optimization recommendations.

· Excellent project management and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple campaigns, timelines, budgets, and stakeholders simultaneously.

· Highly collaborative, proactive, resourceful, and comfortable operating in a fast-paced, evolving environment.

· Passionate about social culture, creators, entertainment, and building brands that people genuinely want to engage with.

Working Conditions

· Required travel – 30%

Physical Requirements

· While performing this job, the incumbent is regularly required to stand, sit, talk hear & use hands and fingers to operate keyboards

Equal Opportunity Employer: Disabled/Veterans

Competitive Pay $119,634 - $143,561 annually

The actual pay offered will be determined by multiple factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s relevant experience, job-related knowledge, skills, and geographical location. Individual compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.