Head of Sponsorships and Experiential Marketing

In Marketing, defying gravity is part of our everyday work because we’re a team of people who love to push the boundaries, to achieve the impossible, and to accept all sorts of never-done-before challenges. Discovery Marketing is a vibrant area who are dedicated to the collective core purpose, values and ambition. We work on numerous projects across distribution channels and across all Discovery products and strive for excellence in all that we do. 

Key Purpose 

The Head of Sponsorships sets the strategic vision and direction for the organisation’s sponsorship portfolio, ensuring it delivers measurable brand and business impact. This role provides strong leadership across the sponsorship function, driving the delivery of high value projects and establishing influential partnerships both internally and externally. As a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders, the incumbent provides expert guidance, strategic insight, and thought leadership, while empowering and developing a high performing sponsorships team. 

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to: 

Strategic sponsorship leadership 

• Lead the development and execution of Discovery’s sponsorship strategy, ensuring alignment to the organisation’s brand, business, marketing and client engagement objectives. 

• Identify, assess and shape high-impact sponsorship opportunities that strengthen Discovery’s market presence, differentiate the brand and create measurable commercial and reputational value. 

Commercial and financial management 

• Own the sponsorship portfolio budget, ensuring disciplined financial planning, allocation, governance and return on investment.  

• Develop strong business cases, secure appropriate funding, negotiate commercial rights and ensure all sponsorship agreements deliver maximum value, strategic relevance and long-term partnership benefit. 

People leadership and team development 

• Lead, coach and develop a high-performing sponsorships team, creating a culture of excellence, accountability, creativity, and continuous improvement.  

• Ensure the team is motivated, engaged, well supported and equipped to deliver against strategic, commercial and operational objectives. 

• Uses stakeholder feedback to inform personal and service delivery improvements. 

Brand, product and asset leverage 

• Maximise the value of sponsorship assets by creating meaningful opportunities to showcase Discovery’s products, benefits and value proposition.  

• Drive integrated campaigns, activations, competitions and experiences that connect sponsorship properties to business priorities, customer engagement and brand growth. 

Sponsorship and experiential execution 

• Oversee the successful delivery of Discovery Group’s mass participation event sponsorships, ambassador programmes and experiential marketing initiatives.  

• Ensure consistent execution, strong stakeholder coordination, brand alignment and high-quality delivery across all sponsorship touchpoints. 

Ambassador and thought leadership strategy 

• Lead the group-wide ambassador strategy, ensuring ambassadors are strategically selected, effectively leveraged and aligned to Discovery’s brand, values and business objectives. 

• Provide strategic direction for thought leadership events and platforms that enhance Discovery’s credibility and market positioning. 

Stakeholder influence and partnership management 

• Build and manage strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including executive leaders, business units, agencies, rights holders, partners and ambassadors. Use negotiation, presentation and influencing skills to secure buy-in, align priorities and drive effective decision-making across diverse stakeholder groups. 

 Skills 

• Strategy development & implementation 

• Contract negotiation & management 

• Internal & external stakeholder management 

• People leadership 

• Budget management 

• Project Management 

• Translate intricate data and strategic insights into visually engaging presentations 

Competencies 

• Values Driven 

• Optimistic 

• Learns on the Fly 

• Resilient 

• Instils Trust 

• People Savvy 

• Drives Results 

• Problem Solver 

• Negotiator 

• Presenter 

• Strong communicator 

Education and Experience 

• Tertiary qualification (NQF level 7 equivalent) essential 

• Master’s degree (advantageous) 

• South African Chartered Marketer Qualification  

• A minimum of 10 to 15 years’ experience in a senior marketing leadership role, preferably as a Head of Marketing or equivalent within a large corporate environment, with proven experience in sponsorships and delivering high-profile events.