Division/Dept. 

Commercial, Nectar360 

Location 

Holborn store support centre plus Home 

Reporting to 

Partner Director

 

In a nutshell

This is a role for a relationship building and influencing specialist with a proven commercial and strategic background. You are an abstract thinker, with a passion for understanding customer (the consumer) behaviour and what makes customers tick.  

Responsible for all Partnerships across Nectar’s travel, financial services and fuel sectors, the successful candidate has a proven track record of leading large teams and experience in delivering significant revenue budgets whilst constantly striving for growth. 

This role requires strategic development of long-term relationships across senior stakeholders in multiple businesses and across a wide array of industries. You will be uniquely positioned to guide the loyalty strategy for millions of customers, whilst also influencing internal teams in both a marketing services agency and a FTSE 100 retailer. 

The role also requires exceptional strategic and commercial acumen, as you will set the strategic direction of the partnerships, solving their complex business challenges across multiple industries, while also being accountable to deliver against a revenue budget of over £20m. 

Reporting into the Director of Nectar Partnerships, the Group Partner Director manages a direct team of three and a wider team of 10. Experience managing, motivating and coaching large teams is required. We are looking for dynamic leaders to help us transform the loyalty landscape in the UK – is this you? 

 

What you need to do  

Strategic Planning & Loyalty market expertise: 

Lead and develop transformative data-driven thinking and strategy across multiple client businesses to deliver Nectar’s objectives and value back to our clients, and ultimately customers. Long term account planning focused on commercial growth, continuously evolving and growing your partnerships, identify opportunity, risks and direct your team to execute plans. Be the most senior representative within Nectar that engages and influences your clients on a regular basis, their leadership team and other senior stakeholders to gain business support for joint plans. Identify synergies across clients and industries and ways to maximise cross programme learning and collaboration. Supporting on the wider strategy and development of the Client Services department, as well as the broader Nectar business e.g. Marketing, Product, Legal. Be seen by clients and colleagues as a loyalty & CRM expert and thought leader, in a number of differing industries, to drive loyalty performance. Identify prospective partners and work in collaboration with business development to grow the coalition with strategically relevant and profitable partners. 

 Commercial Leadership: 

Lead on contract planning and negotiation to ensure mutually beneficial terms and secure renewed multi-year partnerships that ensure the continued accumulation of data-assets that power Nectar and other areas of the wider business. Ability to make decisions on commercial or contractual situations for your clients. Ultimately responsible for delivering the forecasted multi-million-pound revenue targets of your accounts and leading thinking on revenue and growth opportunities/risk mitigation. Prioritise business requests and lead a team of directors, managers and executives on how to manage the accounts accordingly. 

Relationship Management: 

Build a strong and collaborative working relationship with senior level external contacts up to board level across multiple companies in a number of different industries. Use these strong relationships and your highly specialised knowledge of loyalty and CRM to influence and inspire commitment and investment from your clients into the Nectar programme. Ensure senior governance with clients is being executed correctly at the right levels and frequencies for maximum team efficiencies and results. Build a strong and collaborative way of working with peers across Nectar Loyalty leadership and the wider Sainsbury’s Group leadership team (and supporting agencies), to positively develop the culture of both the Client Services team and the broader business. 

Team Leadership: 

Lead the team in a fair and ethical way, and with integrity. This includes performance management, coaching, and clear goal setting. Lead, develop and maintain a challenging, motivating and supportive team environment, in which all colleagues can achieve their responsibilities and play to their strengths. Ability to matrix manage across team functions (analytics/insights, campaign management and marketing) both within Nectar360 and across the wider Sainsbury’s Group, to deliver on client objectives. Brand Ambassador for Nectar Loyalty  - excellent communication skills at all levels, with the ability to articulate the benefits and USP of all Nectar Loyalty services at senior levels and in broader forums including speaking at industry events and within the Sainsbury’s Group.

 

What you need to know and show 

A clear expert in loyalty, CRM/data-driven marketing insights and sales (10+ years), this is a role for a strong commercial leader capable of implementing significant change both internally and externally who is comfortable being accountable for budgets in excess of £40m. You will be working within a client account role with significant subject matter experience and knowledge within loyalty, retail, digital, entertainment, media and B2B.   Extensive experience in managing a large (£multi million) portfolio of clients, with a proven track record of delivering financial targets/budgets. Demonstrable experience in successfully leading, motivating and managing large teams. Significant experience of dealing comfortably with senior executives up to board level within clients. Experience driving tough commercial negotiations, with a track record of securing mutually beneficial outcomes. Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to build positive relationships at all levels. Excellent communication skills with clarity of expression and engaging style.  

 

What decisions I can make 

Responsible for the commercial strategy and plan to deliver £20m of revenue from our key partners, whilst planning to deliver significant future growth aspirations.    Ability to make decisions on commercial or contractual situations for your clients and third parties.  Lead all commercial requirements and prioritisation decisions to work effectively with colleagues in product and marketing to deliver the required loyalty programmes for our partners. Identify, build the business case for, develop and deliver partner opportunities. 

 

Resources available to me 

3 direct reports and a team of 10  A network of day to day colleagues from across Nectar360 and the wider business (Sainsbury’s and Argos) e.g. product, analytics, ecommerce  

 

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