Partnerships Manager

Purpose of Position 

Awin's Unlock the Clock (UTC) programme is building the evidence base and infrastructure to move measurement beyond last click, using deterministic, CDN/edge-level signals and advanced data connections from publishers to show the full-funnel and AI-discovery influence that today's attribution misses. The value of that dataset scales with the quality and scale of the publishers inside it.

This role exists to acquire and retain those publishers. The Senior Partnerships Manager, Media & Data owns the end-to-end pursuit of medium-to-large global media publications and publisher groups, from first conversation to signature, to live, verified data flowing, and is responsible for building the commercial value exchange that makes Awin the leading partner for a premium publisher to work with. The focus in year one is a small number of flagship, tier-one lighthouse partnerships that prove the model and become the reference cases the rest of the market follows.

This is a new, dedicated role. It is not general publisher account management: the postholder is hired to spearhead these relationships and nothing else.

Key Responsibilities 

Land flagship media partnerships

• Build and own a global target list of medium-to-large media publications and publisher groups whose audience, content and commerce activity make them high-value contributors to Awin’s deterministic dataset.
• Own the full pursuit cycle for those targets: identify, qualify, pitch, negotiate, close and hand into onboarding, personally leading senior conversations with commercial, ecommerce, editorial and digital leadership.
• Deliver a defined number of tier-one lighthouse partnerships in year one: signed tracking addendum, technically onboarded, and verifiably recording events at agreed volume and quality thresholds.
• Convert those wins into reference cases, including case studies, joint narratives and referenceable contacts, that materially shorten the sales cycle for the next tranche of publishers.

Build the publisher value proposition

• Own and continuously sharpen the answer to “what’s in it for the publisher”: the commercial, editorial and strategic reasons a premium media owner shares CDN and wider data signals with Awin.
• Construct and negotiate the value exchange, including new revenue lines, advertiser demand, insight and benchmarking, or commercial terms
• Work with Product, Marketing and the workstream owners to translate AI-visibility and full-funnel capability into publisher-facing propositions, collateral and retailer pricing
• Help each partner build their own value proposition, so the publisher has something new and differentiated to sell to advertisers, not simply a new tag on their site.
• Equip partners to sell that proposition through joint collateral, benchmarks, proof points and training for their commercial and editorial teams.
• Feed publisher objections, commercial expectations and market intelligence back into the project roadmap so the product earns the deals rather than the deals stretching the product.

Own the technical and contractual path to live

• Run the integration conversation with publishes, covering CDN/edge worker or plugin deployment, tag and consent implications, data scope and page performance, with Awin product brought in for deep technical detail.
• Own the commercial and legal process end to end, including tracking addendum, data-sharing terms, privacy and consent positions, working with Legal and Privacy to reach repeatable rather than bespoke agreements.
• Hold partners accountable to going live and staying live, tracking signed-to-verified-event conversion

Global reach and internal leadership

• Operate globally from day one across UK, EU and US, coordinating with local Awin market and Publisher Development teams and identified regional representatives rather than duplicating them.
• Act as the single point of accountability and internal voice for media partner acquisition within the project: represent the workstream in relevant forums and provide clear, honest pipeline and progress reporting to SteerCo level.
• Partner with the advertiser-facing teams so publisher supply and advertiser demand are sequenced together: the data has to be sold on as well as signed up.
• Represent Awin externally at key industry events, conferences and partner forums to promote Unlock the Clock and Awin’s fuller-funnel measurement strategy to the media community.
• Build the playbook: document what works, so the model can be scaled by others and, in time, by a small team reporting into this role.

Success measures (first 12 months)

• Signed and live tier-one lighthouse partnerships against an agreed target, evidenced by verified event volume
• A qualified, weighted global pipeline of medium-to-large media groups with credible forward visibility.
• A repeatable publisher proposition and commercial framework: not a series of bespoke negotiations.
• Partner-facing value propositions live in market, with at least two partners actively selling an Awin-enabled proposition of their own.
• Referenceable partners willing to advocate publicly, at least one flagship case study in market, and Awin represented on stage at relevant industry events.
• Measurable advertiser-side pull-through from the partnerships landed, agreed jointly with the advertiser teams.

Key Skills

• 7+ years in commercial, partnership or account leadership roles, with a significant portion earned publisher-side or media-owner-side.
• An established personal network of senior contacts across the media and publishing world that can be activated from day one. This is a prerequisite, not a nice-to-have.
• Experience representing an organisation publicly: speaking at industry events, on panels or at partner forums.
• Demonstrable track record of senior-level relationships inside premium publishers or media groups, including commercial directors, heads of ecommerce, editorial and digital leadership.
• Experience negotiating and closing commercial agreements with, or on behalf of, publishers: tenancy, CPC, CPA, fixed fee, data or licensing deals.
• Working knowledge of the affiliate and performance ecosystem and how publishers monetise content, for example Awin, Skimlinks, Rakuten, Partnerize, Impact or similar.
• Experience selling or landing something new, a product, model or proposition without an established category, rather than managing an existing book of business.
• Comfortable navigating multi-stakeholder deals spanning commercial, editorial, legal, privacy and technical teams.
• International exposure across at least two of UK, US and DACH/EMEA markets.
• Desirable: experience with content licensing, AI/LLM discovery, SEO/AEO, or data partnership deals.
• Commercially creative, able to construct a value exchange where no price list exists.
• Relationship builder with genuine credibility at senior level.
• Strong negotiator, comfortable with ambiguity and long sales cycles.
• Excellent storyteller: can turn technical capability into a publisher-relevant revenue narrative.
• Confident, credible public speaker, comfortable on stage and in front of a room as a visible advocate for Awin’s strategy.
• Self-starting and resilient. This is a build role, not a maintain role.
• Collaborative and low-ego; comfortable pulling in engineering, legal, product and local market teams.
• Analytically confident: fluent in performance data, able to interrogate reporting and defend a number.
• Strategic mindset paired with a bias to action and closing.
• Technically literate rather than technical: able to hold a credible conversation about tags, tracking, CDNs and edge/worker deployments, page performance and data flows, and to know when to bring engineering into the room.
• Confident with analytics and reporting platforms, including GA4, publisher analytics, BI dashboards and Excel or Sheets.
• Comfortable working with privacy and consent concepts, including GDPR and consent frameworks, as they affect publisher data sharing.
• Fluent English essential. German or another European language advantageous.

Our Offer

• Flexi-Week: We prioritise your mental health and wellbeing by offering you a four-day Flexi-Week (with one lighter or completely disconnected day per week) at full pay, with no reduction to your annual holiday allowance.
• Flexi-Office: We offer an international culture and flexibility through our hybrid working model, designed to foster collaboration, trust, and autonomy.
• Work Expense Contribution & Remote Working Furniture: You will receive a monthly allowance to cover part of your running costs, as well as a furniture package to support you in setting up a comfortable workspace at home.
• Health & Wellbeing: Comprehensive coverage for a range of health benefits.

  In addition, you’ll benefit from our global offering, including health and wellbeing initiatives, learning and development via Awin Academy, and peer-to-peer recognition programmes.

Established in 2000, Awin is proud of our dynamic, social and inclusive culture.

Like all businesses, we’ve had to adapt and nurture our culture in a virtual environment. Our virtual ‘Life @ Awin’ hub brings our colleagues from across the globe together for various social activities.

Diversity & Inclusion are paramount to us, and we proudly pursue and hire diverse team members. We champion uniqueness and authenticity; this is who we are at our core. Our network of affiliate partnerships are diverse and transparent, as are the employees powering our vision to build the world’s leading open partner ecosystem. We welcome all backgrounds, identities, and experiences. If you need support at any point in the application or interview process, please let us know.

Awin is part of the Axel Springer group. Learn more at axelspringer.com/en/, and explore the Axel Springer Essentials here: axelspringer.com/en/inside/the-essentials-what-we-have-adapted-and-why  

Apply now to begin the next stage of your career at a progressive company that supports both your professional and personal development.