Director - Strategic Partnerships, Sports & Entertainment

Strategic Partnerships manages and grows the most significant enterprise relationships across American Express and ensures we represent Amex as a best-in-class partnerships organization. The team is responsible for defining multi-year partnership strategies, supporting key negotiations and projects, and driving new business opportunities globally with our largest Blue Box partners. It exists to deliver against three core objectives: (1) support and develop partner strategies that maximize value to customers and the enterprise, (2) bring the best of Amex to drive growth and innovation (3) foster and maintain external and internal relationships.

This Director will report to the VP, Sports & Entertainment Partnerships, and will help drive thought leadership in Sports & Entertainment strategy while supporting our key sports and entertainment partnerships. Success in this role will require a deep knowledge of our partners and their priorities, comfort working in white space as we look to unlock new sources of value, and an ability to collaborate with colleagues and partners to achieve partnership outcomes. This role will build relationships with key leaders across strategic sports and entertainment properties (e.g., NBA, Formula 1, MGM), identify opportunities to create enterprise value beyond our existing commercial sponsorship relationships, and help shape innovative partnership strategies that drive growth. This is an excellent opportunity for a self-motivated individual who is interested in furthering business development, relationship management, and leadership skills in an environment where innovation is highly valued and encouraged.

- Proven ability to collaborate with partners to deliver against key priorities (business development, negotiations, issue resolution).
- Experience managing complex strategic projects with many stakeholders. Strong project management skills and attention to detail.
- Excellent written and verbal communication. Able to take complex ideas/materials and synthesize for different audiences. Comfortable engaging with and presenting to senior leadership.
- Ability to perform in a highly dynamic, fast-paced environment. High degree of intellectual curiosity, comfort with ambiguity, ability to bring structure to “blue sky” opportunities.
- Positive and agile approach.
- Financial, analytical, and AI acumen; ability to translate data into insight.
- Strategic thought leader with demonstrated ability to identify growth opportunities, navigate complex business issues, and resolve challenges across partner ecosystems.
- Experience supporting partner strategy, business development, and negotiations with external partners and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Strong collaboration and influence management skills, with the ability to align diverse stakeholder groups around common objectives.
- Experience in sports and entertainment partnerships, business development, strategy, or managing external partner relationships preferred.
- Bachelor's degree required

Employment eligibility to work with American Express in the United States is required as the company will not pursue visa sponsorship for these positions.