Responsibilities

• Role Summary & Impact: As an Associate Director, Sports Sponsorship at WPP Media, you will play a pivotal leadership role in developing and delivering integrated sports partnership strategies for Mazda. You will translate Mazda's business, brand, and audience priorities into distinctive sponsorship platforms and activation programs that build meaningful connections with consumers, strengthen brand relevance, and generate measurable impact.
• Serving as a senior day-to-day client and partner lead, you will guide sponsorship programs from strategic development and opportunity assessment through negotiation, activation, measurement, and optimization.
• You will collaborate closely with senior Mazda stakeholders, internal WPP Media teams, agency partners, sports properties, rights holders, talent representatives, and vendors to ensure sponsorship initiatives are strategically sound, creatively compelling, operationally excellent, and fully integrated into Mazda's broader marketing approach.
• This role requires an informed perspective on the evolving sports and entertainment landscape, a strong command of partnership strategy and activation, and the ability to lead complex workstreams with confidence.
• The ideal candidate is a collaborative, solutions-oriented leader who can connect fan passions to business objectives, influence senior stakeholders, and inspire teams to deliver breakthrough work.

Requirements

• Education & Experience: Bachelor's degree in marketing, advertising, business administration, sports management, communications, or a related discipline; or equivalent professional work experience.
• Minimum of 7 years of relevant experience in sports sponsorship, partnership marketing, sports marketing, experiential marketing, integrated marketing, media, or a related field.
• Proven experience developing sponsorship strategies and leading integrated activation programs for major brands.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex partnerships involving rights holders, leagues, teams, events, properties, talent, agencies, and multiple client stakeholders.
• Strong knowledge of the sports sponsorship lifecycle, including opportunity assessment, rights negotiation, contracting, activation planning, execution, measurement, and renewal evaluation.
• Experience managing significant program budgets and complex financial workstreams.
• Demonstrated success leading client relationships, presenting to senior stakeholders, and influencing strategic decisions.
• Experience managing and developing junior talent and leading multidisciplinary teams.

Preferred

• Automotive, mobility, lifestyle, experiential, or consumer-brand experience is beneficial but not required.
• Familiarity with dealer, retail, or regional activation models is a plus.

Benefits

• Our benefits include competitive medical, group retirement plans, vision, and dental insurance, significant paid time off, preferential partner discounts, and employee mental health awareness days.