Vice President – Global Partnerships - Golf Events

Who We Are:

IMG is a leading global sports marketing agency, specializing in media rights management and sales, multi-channel content production and distribution, brand partnerships, strategic consulting, digital services, and event management. It powers growth of revenues, fanbases and IP for more than 250 federations, associations, events, and teams, including the National Football League, English Premier League, International Olympic Committee, National Hockey League, Major League Soccer, ATP and WTA Tours, the AELTC (Wimbledon), Euroleague Basketball, CONMEBOL, World Rugby, DP World Tour, and The R&A, as well as UFC, WWE, and PBR. IMG is a subsidiary of TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO), a premium sports and entertainment company. TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO) is a premium sports and entertainment company. TKO owns iconic properties including UFC, the world’s premier mixed martial arts organization; WWE, the global leader in sports entertainment; and PBR, the world’s premier bull riding organization. Together, these properties reach 1 billion households across 210 countries and territories and organize more than 500 live events year-round, attracting more than three million fans. TKO also services and partners with major sports rights holders through IMG, an industry-leading global sports marketing agency; and On Location, a global leader in premium experiential hospitality.

Position Overview
The Vice President, Corporate Partnerships will lead the commercial partnerships strategy and revenue generation efforts for IMG Golf Events across North America. The role will have responsibility for sponsorship and hospitality revenue across the portfolio, providing strategic leadership to event-based commercial teams while personally developing and closing significant partnership opportunities.

The VP will also serve as the primary commercial liaison between IMG Golf Events North America and the broader IMG Golf and Brand Partnerships organizations, ensuring Golf is effectively represented within the company's larger commercial ecosystem. The position will proactively connect Golf's events, assets and opportunities with relationships and initiatives across IMG and TKO, while identifying opportunities to bring broader IMG and TKO capabilities and relationships into the Golf portfolio (and vice-versa).

Working closely with Global Brand Partnerships, Golf Events senior leadership, Event/Championship Directors, in-market sales teams and IMG’s broader commercial organization, the VP will be responsible for maximizing the commercial value of IMG’s golf event portfolio, developing new revenue opportunities and building long-term relationships with leading brands and partners.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the overall corporate partnerships strategy for IMG Golf Events North America, with responsibility for achieving and exceeding sponsorship and hospitality revenue targets across the portfolio.

• Develop annual and long-term commercial plans for each event in collaboration with Senior Management, Event/Championship Directors and in-market partnership teams, establishing clear revenue targets, priorities, target categories and sales strategies.

• Provide leadership, direction and accountability to in-market partnership sales personnel, establishing targets, reviewing pipelines, guiding prospecting strategies and supporting the team in progressing and closing significant opportunities.

• Personally originate, develop and close major partnership opportunities, including title partnerships, presenting partnerships and other significant multi-year commercial relationships across IMG Golf Events.

• Consistently identify and engage prospective brands and decision-makers, generating new relationships and developing a strong pipeline of qualified commercial opportunities.

• Identify opportunities to create new sellable assets, partnership platforms and event concepts that increase the commercial value of existing events and create incremental revenue opportunities across the portfolio.

• Lead the development of compelling sponsorship proposals, presentations and customized partnership solutions that address prospective partners' business and marketing objectives.

• Lead commercial negotiations with prospective partners through contract execution, working closely with legal, finance, event leadership and other internal stakeholders as required.

• Develop opportunities for portfolio-wide and multi-event partnerships, leveraging IMG Golf Events' collective scale and assets to create broader and more valuable relationships with brands.

• Work closely with Event/Championship Directors to ensure commercial strategies and partner commitments are aligned with each event's positioning, operational capabilities and overall objectives.

• Partner with account management and event teams to support the successful transition of new partnerships from sale through activation and delivery, helping build strong, long-term partner relationships and renewal opportunities.

• Maintain senior-level relationships with key existing partners and participate in renewal and expansion strategies for strategically important accounts.

• Represent IMG Golf Events North America within IMG's broader commercial organization, proactively connecting the golf portfolio with central and global sales initiatives and identifying opportunities involving existing IMG/TKO relationships.

• Collaborate closely with IMG's central and global sales teams, sharing inventory, prospects, pipeline intelligence and commercial opportunities and representing Golf Events North America in relevant commercial meetings and sales calls.

• Provide Senior Management with clear and consistent visibility into commercial performance, including revenue versus target, pipeline development, key opportunities, risks and projected closes.

• Ensure commercial teams maintain accurate and timely pipeline, prospect and deal information within the company's CRM and utilize the platform as an effective sales management and forecasting tool.

• Maintain a strong understanding of the sports sponsorship marketplace, competitive events, brand investment trends and emerging categories to identify opportunities and inform commercial strategy.

• Serve as a senior commercial point of contact across IMG Golf Events, collaborating closely with event management, marketing, operations, finance, legal, sales and account management teams.

• Contribute to broader IMG Golf Events North America strategy and new business initiatives, including the commercial evaluation and development of potential new events and properties.

• Perform other responsibilities consistent with the seniority and scope of the role as required.

Key Results Areas:

• Commercial leadership and delivery of all revenues across portfolio. 

• Ensuring annual sponsorship targets are reached/exceeded for the division.

• Delivery of new sponsors to the portfolio.

• Management and retention of existing sponsors.

• Identify and exhaust alternative revenue streams.

Knowledge and Experience

• 10+ years experience

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Communications, Marketing or other related field preferred.

• 10+ years of sales experience required with exposure to sport and/or event sales.

• An extensive network of senior client relationships 

• Strong leadership skills

• Demonstrable experience of developing high value, consultative, solution focused marketing programmes for mature and/or niche properties

• Capable of thinking creatively with a commercially driven, entrepreneurial mindset

• Demonstrable experience of building, managing, and prioritising a pipeline to deliver effective results with a personal track record of leveraging referrals, developing leads, and securing meetings with prospective partners to close deals

• Great history of creating high value sponsorship programs for large-scale live events 

• Active long-term and trusting relationships with decision makers at industry-relevant companies

• Excellent application and knowledge of sponsorships and brand activation

• Well-versed in complex and nuanced contract negotiations

• Experience in initiating and driving sales, providing support and knowledge to enable your team to deliver success.

• Can demonstrate experience of responding to brand needs, producing tailored propositions to suit the needs of individual companies

• A thorough understanding of the end-to-end sales process and the customer buying process (including awareness of the emotional connections required by brands)

• Experience in effective storytelling of partnership opportunities to and engagement of senior and c-level executives and targeted companies and brands

• Proven experience of initiating and executing high value sales in either a B2B or B2C environment

• Proven track record of successful client relationships and strategic account management/engagement

Skills and Abilities

• Must have strong written and verbal English language skills. 

• Creative thinking – how to utilize the collective IP of IMG / TKO to create new event assets

• Outstanding revenue generation and business development acumen

• Proven ability to devise, commercialize and implement events in complex stakeholder environments

• Outstanding interpersonal communication and influencing skills across all levels of business management, in highly matrixed organizations 

• Demonstrated planning and follow-through capabilities

• Highest personal integrity and ethics

• Ability to build long lasting working relationships with internal and external stakeholders 

• A strong team player that is flexible dependent on business demand

• Excellent sales, presentation, and negotiation skills.  

• Strong decision making and awareness of the need for involvement of legal, finance and senior teams at the appropriate stages

• Navigates through customer politics

In addition, success at IMG is driven by four core competencies that apply to all employees:

• Business Acumen – Understanding financial drivers, interpreting business data, aligning decisions to strategic outcomes

• Operational Excellence – Driving efficiency, governance, and continuous improvement in delivery & operations

• Innovation Mindset – Cultivating curiosity, experimentation, and forward-looking capability development

• Leadership & Collaboration – Inspiring others, building trust, and enabling collaboration across teams

Working Conditions

• This is a permanent position

• Regular weekend work where you may be required to travel to events in line with existing and prospective Events portfolio. 

• Outside of event travel there will be a requirement to travel for meetings as part of the role.

TKO EEO Statement:

TKO is an Equal Opportunity Employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws regarding non-discrimination in employment. TKO makes employment decisions based on merit and qualifications, without considering an employee’s or applicant’s race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other basis prohibited under federal, state or local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the Company has facilities. TKO also provides reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and applicable state or local laws. For information about Privacy and Information Security for TKO employment candidates, please review our Privacy Policy. For information regarding Terms of Use for this and other TKO websites, please review our Terms of Use.