Senior Partnerships Manager

Location: New York City, USA
Employment Type: Full-time
Work Arrangement: On-site – 5 days per week
Seniority Level: Senior / Experienced Individual Contributor
Experience: 2–5 years

About the Role

Sperton is looking for a Senior Partnerships Manager to lead the supply-side growth of a rapidly growing sponsorship marketplace.

In this role, you will be responsible for bringing rights holders onto the platform, helping them list and commercialize their sponsorship inventory, and building strategic relationships that establish the marketplace as a preferred channel for sponsorship sales. Working closely with the founders, you will develop the partnerships strategy, establish repeatable processes, and lead high-value conversations with major sports properties, venues, and event organizations.

This is a hands-on, high-ownership role suited to someone who can combine relationship building, commercial negotiation, strategic thinking, and execution. As the business grows, you will have the opportunity to build and manage a dedicated rights-holder partnerships team.

Key Responsibilities

- Own the strategy for acquiring and onboarding rights holders to the marketplace.
- Identify and engage sports teams, leagues, venues, event organizers, and other sponsorship inventory owners.
- Build and maintain senior-level relationships with key rights holders and decision-makers.
- Lead commercial negotiations and strategic partnership discussions with major properties.
- Collaborate closely with the founders to shape the marketplace's supply-side growth strategy.
- Work with internal teams to improve partner experience, marketplace adoption, and commercial performance.
- Identify opportunities to expand existing partnerships and increase the volume and quality of available sponsorship inventory.
- Establish performance metrics and processes to support scalable partnership acquisition.
- Build and eventually lead a rights-holder partnerships team as the function expands.

What We're Looking For

- Approximately 2–5 years of relevant experience in partnerships, business development, sales, account management, or a related commercial role.
- Experience building relationships with external partners and developing commercially valuable partnerships.
- Strong negotiation, communication, and stakeholder-management skills.
- Ability to identify opportunities, initiate conversations, and move complex commercial discussions toward closure.
- Comfort working in a fast-paced, early-stage startup environment with evolving priorities.
- Ability to take ownership of projects and develop processes from scratch.
- Strong commercial judgment and an understanding of revenue generation.
- Confidence communicating with senior stakeholders and leading high-value partnership discussions.

About Sperton

Sperton is an international recruitment and workforce solutions company supporting organizations with talent acquisition, staffing and consultancy, People Management, Global Mobility, and business support. We connect professionals with opportunities where they can contribute their expertise and create meaningful business impact.