Partnerships & Community Manager

Our partners are Zone3 at the water's edge. Ambassadors, athletes, influencers, clubs and event partners across the UK, US and Germany, all of them talking to the people we want to reach, in places we cannot reach on our own.

The programmes exist and they work. They were also built for a smaller business, and they now need someone to beyond the set up and finesse them for three markets. That is the job. Not keeping a calendar ticking over, but deciding who Zone3 should be working with, what those relationships are worth, and how to get far more out of them than we do today.

You will own the partner budget and the roster. If a partnership is not earning its place, ending it is your call. If someone should be on the roster and is not, finding them is your call too.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

  • The ambassador and influencer programme across the UK, the US and Germany. Who is on it, what they receive, what they produce, and what it returns.
  • Growth of the roster. Finding, assessing and signing partners who move the brand, and closing the ones that do not.
  • Athlete onboarding, and the comms plan that keeps partners active across the year rather than going quiet after launch.
  • Our club partnerships and their digital comms plan.
  • Event marketing deliverables and the digital comms plan. On event days you are on site with your partners, working the activation in person and making sure real content comes out of the weekend
  • The content that comes back. Briefing partners properly so the work is usable, and handing it to the social and creative team. Some filming, and occasionally being in front of the camera yourself.
  • What the programme returns. Reach, engagement, content produced and sales influenced. You set the measure, you report it, and you use it to decide where next year's budget goes.

WHERE THIS ROLE GOES

We are not hiring someone to inherit this and carry on. The first year is building the machine: a roster worth having, a comms plan that holds across three markets, and numbers that tell us what any of it is worth. Beyond that we would expect this to become the role that owns partnerships and community at Zone3 outright.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

  • One thing matters more than everything else on this page. You have built or substantially grown an ambassador, athlete or influencer programme for a brand in sport, endurance or active lifestyle, and you can show us what it produced.
  • Two years or more running partner, ambassador or athlete programmes for a brand. Agency-side counts if you were the one holding the relationships.
  • Evidence that you grew something. Roster quality, output, reach, sales influenced. Bring the numbers.
  • You have signed partners and you have ended partnerships. Contract terms and budget management are familiar ground.
  • The judgement to say no. Most inbound partnership requests are not worth having, and knowing which ones are is most of the job.
  • Comfort operating across markets. The UK, the US and Germany behave differently and your planning should reflect that.
  • Strong communicator – happy picking up the phone, talking to people at events etc
  • Strong writing. Briefs, comms plans and partner communications come from you, and they need to sound like us.
  • The organisation to run several programmes at once without any of them going quiet.
  • Willingness to travel, to work event weekends through the season, and to be on camera now and then.
  • A full, clean driving licence.

USEFUL, NOT ESSENTIAL

  • A background in triathlon, open water swimming, running or cycling. You do not have to race, but you should understand the people who do.
  • German, or another European language.

HOW TO APPLY

Send your CV and a short note about one partnership you built and what it returned to the brand. We are more interested in that than in a covering letter.

For the full list of employee benefits, visit zone3.com/pages/careers