Senior Director, Talent Partnerships - Gaming

Job Description

Job Overview

The Senior Director, Talent Partnerships is a senior commercial leader responsible for driving high-value sponsorship, endorsement, partnership, and media integration opportunities across VaynerSports’ gaming talent portfolio. This individual will own the full business development lifecycle, from identifying and cultivating prospective brand partners through developing customized opportunities, negotiating agreements, and supporting long-term partnership growth.

The Senior Director will combine strong sales expertise with a deep understanding of the gaming, creator, influencer, and broader entertainment landscape to develop opportunities that authentically connect talent with brands. The role requires a highly proactive relationship builder who can create demand, identify emerging categories and trends, and translate talent platforms into compelling commercial opportunities.

Key Responsibilities

Partnership Sales & Business Development

• Lead new business development efforts for VaynerSports’ gaming talent, with a focus on securing high-value sponsorships, endorsements, brand partnerships, and other commercial opportunities.
• Identify, prospect, cultivate, and develop relationships with brands, agencies, marketers, media companies, platforms, and other prospective partners.
• Develop strategic outreach plans that create new entry points into priority brands, categories, and industries.
• Build relationships with key decision-makers and establish VaynerSports and its talent as valuable long-term partners rather than transactional sponsorship opportunities.
• Develop a deep understanding of prospective partners' business objectives and utilize a consultative sales approach to create solutions aligned with both brand goals and talent positioning.
• Lead pitches, presentations, negotiations, and commercial discussions from initial outreach through deal close.
• Consistently deliver against individual and portfolio revenue goals, with an expectation of generating multi-seven-figure revenue.

Pipeline Ownership & Lead Generation

• Own and actively manage a robust sales pipeline across the assigned talent portfolio.
• Generate new leads through direct prospecting, existing relationships, referrals, industry events, market research, and strategic networking.
• Maintain disciplined pipeline management, including accurate tracking of prospects, opportunities, deal stages, anticipated revenue, and next steps.
• Establish consistent prospecting and follow-up activity to ensure continuous movement throughout the sales funnel.
• Partner with internal stakeholders to prioritize talent, inventory, categories, and opportunities based on commercial potential and organizational objectives.
• Provide visibility into pipeline health, sales activity, revenue projections, and potential risks or opportunities.

Partnership Upsells & Renewals

• Identify opportunities to expand existing brand relationships across additional talent, campaigns, platforms, content, events, or commercial properties.
• Work proactively to position successful partnerships for renewal well in advance of contract expiration.
• Develop strategies that transform one-time activations into broader, longer-term relationships.
• Maintain strong relationships with existing partners to understand evolving objectives, identify additional needs, and uncover incremental revenue opportunities.
• Collaborate with internal teams to leverage partnership performance, campaign results, and client feedback in support of renewals and upsells.

Media Integration Sales

• Develop and sell media integration opportunities across relevant gaming, creator, social, digital, streaming, experiential, and content platforms.
• Package talent reach, content capabilities, audience engagement, and relevant media assets into compelling opportunities for prospective partners.
• Work collaboratively with internal teams to ensure proposed media integrations are both commercially viable and authentic to the talent.
• Identify opportunities to integrate brands into existing content as well as develop new branded content concepts and platforms.

Creative Property & Partnership Ideation

• Develop original, sellable concepts that extend beyond traditional endorsement and sponsorship models.
• Translate talent interests, audience behaviors, cultural moments, and emerging trends into differentiated commercial properties.
• Collaborate with talent representatives, creative, marketing, content, and other internal teams to develop partnership concepts that can be taken proactively to market.
• Identify opportunities to build repeatable or scalable commercial properties that can generate revenue across multiple talent relationships.
• Contribute a strong commercial lens during the development of new talent initiatives, programming, content concepts, events, and intellectual property.

Market Intelligence & Strategic Growth

• Maintain a strong understanding of the gaming, creator, influencer, sports, entertainment, advertising, and digital media ecosystems.
• Monitor marketplace activity to identify emerging categories, brands, platforms, consumer behaviors, partnership models, and sales trends.
• Track relevant competitor and industry activity to identify whitespace and potential opportunities for VaynerSports talent.
• Develop informed perspectives on where brand dollars are moving and proactively position the portfolio to capitalize on emerging opportunities.
• Maintain an active industry network and continually expand relationships that can generate future business.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with agents, talent managers, client service teams, marketing, creative, legal, finance, and other stakeholders throughout the sales process.
• Develop a strong understanding of individual talent priorities, interests, brand positioning, existing commitments, and partnership parameters.
• Ensure commercial opportunities presented to talent are thoughtful, relevant, and aligned with their individual brand and long-term objectives.
• Communicate effectively across internal teams throughout the sales cycle to ensure appropriate visibility, alignment, and execution readiness.
• Support a collaborative commercial culture by sharing market intelligence, relationships, leads, and opportunities that can benefit the broader organization.

Qualifications

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Sports Management, or a related field preferred, but not required.
• Minimum of 5+ years of demonstrated sales, partnerships, business development, sponsorship, media, or related commercial experience.
• Proven track record of generating revenue and successfully closing complex, high-value partnerships.
• Experience managing the end-to-end sales cycle, including prospecting, relationship development, pitching, negotiation, closing, renewal, and expansion.
• Experience within gaming, esports, creators, influencers, sports, entertainment, media, advertising, or adjacent industries strongly preferred.



Knowledge & Skills

• Strong understanding of the gaming, creator, and influencer ecosystem and how brands activate within these spaces.
• Demonstrated consultative selling ability and strong commercial acumen.
• Excellent presentation, pitching, storytelling, and written communication skills.
• Strong negotiation skills with the ability to navigate sophisticated commercial conversations.
• Ability to develop creative solutions based on brand objectives rather than relying solely on existing sponsorship inventory.
• Strong research skills and the ability to translate marketplace intelligence into actionable sales opportunities.
• Excellent pipeline discipline and experience managing multiple active prospects and opportunities simultaneously.
• Strong time management, organization, prioritization, and follow-through.
• Ability to build and continuously expand a meaningful professional network.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment with significant ownership and accountability.

Measures of Success

Success in the Senior Director, Talent Partnerships role will be demonstrated through sustained multi-seven-figure revenue generation across the portfolio; development and conversion of a strong, diversified sales pipeline; growth in both new and existing brand relationships; successful partnership renewals and upsells; creation of new sellable commercial properties; expansion into emerging brand categories and revenue opportunities; and strong collaboration with talent representatives and internal teams.