Head of Brand Partnerships - 12 Month FTC

We're looking for a Head of Brand Partnerships to join our eCommerce Digital Marketing team on a 12 Month FTC (maternity cover)!

Based from either our Central London Office, our Leicestershire Head Office or our Manchester Office on a hybrid basis, offering a competitive salary range starting from £90,000 with great benefits like company car, private medical insurance, company profit related bonus and more!

The Role:

Brand Partnerships are a critical driver of NEXT’s eCommerce Marketing commercial success, directly generating in excess of £5m in annual co-funded media investment across a portfolio of over 700 online partner brands. 

As the Head of Brand Partnerships, you’ll be responsible for maintaining strategic vision, commercial continuity and performance execution. Acting as the key integration point between Digital Marketing, eCommerce Trading, Product and external media agencies, you will lead end to end marketing activity for major partner brands (Nike, adidas, Barbour) across Sports, Home, Fashion and Beauty, alongside key NEXT Wholly-Owned Brands & Licences (such as Seraphine, Nina Campbell). You are accountable for driving incremental sales and commercial returns of our partnership activity.

Managing 2 Brand Partnership Managers and leading a wider team of 9, you will provide the senior decision making capability needed to hit brand investment targets, return on ad spend and sustain brand commitments without interruption.

What You’ll Take On:

• Lead and maintain the seasonal and annual brand partnerships strategy for digital advertising across NEXT owned and paid media channels.
• Pitch, negotiate, and secure brand-funded and co-funded marketing budgets exceeding £5m annually.
• Drive incremental sales and meet campaign KPIs including NEXT internal LTV metric.
• Oversee end-to-end partner activations across Sports, Home, Fashion, and Beauty categories in alignment with brand tiering guidelines.
• Lead digital marketing strategy and execution for key wholly owned and licensed brands.
• Brief, align, and direct internal stakeholders (Product, Trade, Creative Production, Finance, PR, Social) and external media agencies to ensure campaign alignment.

What You’ll Bring:

With proven experience in digital media, agency account leadership, or brand partnerships, you will be highly results oriented, analytical and skilled at building high value strategic relationships. In addition, you must have:

• Extensive experience in digital performance media, agency account leadership, or client-side brand partner management.
• Proven track record of pitching for and securing multi-million pound media co-funding budgets from retail and consumer brands.
• Strong commercial acumen and numerical capability, with proven success in managing P&L targets, forecasting and analysing campaign ROI.
• Comprehensive knowledge of digital media channels.
• Exceptional stakeholder management skills with the ability to build collaborative relationships across internal execution teams and senior brand executives (CMOs/CCOs).
• High level of organisational, time management and project management skills, capable of delivering complex multi-channel campaigns under tight deadlines.
• Strategic problem solver able to effectively balance shopper experience, brand goals, and NEXT commercial priorities.
• Experienced team leader adept at coaching direct reports and managing virtual cross functional teams.
• Must be comfortable with national travel as this role requires travel to Head Office in Leicestershire and to London for brand meetings.