Associate Director, Partnerships

We use our expertise and products to craft customer experiences. Our range of services helps global brand acquire, engage and retain choice-rich customers.

© 2023 Collinson International Limited. Registered in England & Wales under registration No. 2577557

Registered address : 3 More London Riverside, London, SE1 2AQ, United Kingdom.

Collinson Group is a global leader in driving loyalty and engagement for many of the world’s largest companies. Predominantly through the provision of travel related benefits within a market leading digital travel ecosystem. The group offers a unique blend of industry and sector specialists who together provide market-leading experience in delivering products and services across four core capabilities : Loyalty, Lifestyle Benefits and Insurance.

The group provides unrivalled insight and expertise around affluent consumers and frequent travellers, creating and delivering products and services now accessible to over 400m end consumers.

We have more than 25 years’ experience, with 28 global locations, servicing over 800 clients in 170 countries, employing 1,800 people.

We have been bringing innovation to the market since inception – from launching the first independent global VIP lounge access Programme, Priority Pass to being the first to sell direct travel insurance in the UK through Columbus Direct and creating the first loyalty agency of its kind in the travel sector with ICLP. Today we still invest heavily in innovation to ensure that we continue to deliver superior customer experiences.

Key clients include : Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, LATAM, Flying Blue, Accor, EasyJet, HSBC, Chase, HDFC.

Our mission is focused on doing good beyond profit, which for us means we seek out opportunities for our people to share in our success and that we give back to the communities and people within which we work.

Never short of ambition, the success of our business is delivered through the diverse and talented team of over 1,800 colleagues globally.

What does a Associate Director Partnerships South America    Do :

We are looking for an Associate Director, Partnerships to join our team and help make partnerships a reality for our wholly owned premium brands and blue-chip clients in financial services, travel, retail, technology, and the media.

Currently reporting directly to Vice President of Partnerships – Americas, the role of the Associate Director, Partnerships will lead the South American team except Brazil to leverage overall Americas Region and Collinson group demand and drive competitive advantage. Through securing competitive commercial terms to enhancing margins from transactions and in securing exclusivity where appropriate to restrict competitive activity. The successful candidate will seek to drive an innovative approach with partners, work and integrate with them to build value-added relationships to provide an enriched and frictionless end-consumer experience to identify, develop and manage partner relationships across various geographies. You will have an inherent understanding of partnership marketing strategy and will deliver partnerships from the idea generation, through to negotiation, securing final agreements, delivering signed contracts, and leveraging the ongoing relationship with the partner for the benefit of the Group.

You will be directly accountable for many of the partner relationships in South America except for Brazil. This includes management of existing, growth of new partners / concepts / opportunities, and broad innovation to drive the business.

You will be working within an Americas regional team, with the team responsible for partnerships from the north / Canada all the way down to bottom of South America. The role will be responsible to build partnerships and source deals with retailers, restaurants, spas and other services in airports to support our Airport Experience programs (including Priority Pass, our premium lifestyle brand and the world’s largest airport lounge access program) as well as other Group opportunities.

You will be expected to understand the Group’s businesses and competitive marketplace, identifying new opportunities to deliver successful, best in class partnerships to support other Group opportunities as required.

This is an individual contributor role at first, however building and leveraging relationships without direct authority is critical to overall success.

What You'll Do :

• Team Leadership – Align specific partner goals and objectives to the Americas / Global lounge and partner strategy. Provide leadership, direction and motivation to all members of the South America except Brazil partnerships team.
• Partner Management strategy – Understand the broader commercial context of airport experience locations, pricing and contractual terms; execute a regional strategy in line with the global approach that delivers expected results.
• Platform strategy – Understand platform strategy and execution, including management of incentives and experience for all participants.
• Relationship Management – Foster and develop long-term strategic relationships with suppliers that deliver competitive advantage for Collinson Group, including face-to-face meetings with key business partners driving engagement to deeper levels.
• Contract management – Ensure preferential contract terms are in place to reflect the global scale of the business.
• Governance – Aligned with Global strategy and Regional dynamics, ensure effective controls are in place in relation to pricing, marketing, and general promotional activities
• Systems – provide input to the development of and / or use of tools appropriate to the role :
• review and own Regional elements within the centrally managed pricing database
• use of online system for initiating and storing all lounge and partner contracts
• booking system and capacity / yield management system
• Traffic management – Manage strategies, promotions and activities that either drive or divert traffic to ensure profit maximization and overcapacity mitigation.
• Recruitment – responsible for recruitment of new lounges and merchants to further increase regional coverage
• Quality – Carry out competitive and quality reviews and improvement plans
• Innovation – drive product / service innovation in lounges and airport merchants that give Collinson an advantage and our customers value-add and innovation in commercial models to deliver optimum outcomes
• Marketing – Review lounge signage, communications and other collateral to ensure our marketing and brand position is prime and consistent with our brand guidelines.
• Structure – Ability to effectively operate in a matrix organization; with both local and remote reporting relationships and key, business decision makers.
• Future opportunities – Explore, oversee and further define partnerships beyond commercial airports and the travel sector.
• What You'll Need :
• Proven success in conducting business and building merchant relationships within commercial airports
• Experience in the travel, airline, hospitality or other service related fields
• Experience in Supplier Relations / Supply Chain Management
• Bachelors’ Degree in Business or Supply Chain Management; or equivalent experience
• 3+ years of experience in managing a team at a senior level
• 7+ years of experience in managing key, business relationships
• Must be multi-lingual with fluent written and spoken Spanish and English
• Ability to persuade and influence at a senior level
• Strong commercial acumen and negotiation skills
• Entrepreneurial, motivated, assertive, and collaborative; as well as a self-starter and a quick-thinker
• Proficiency in Excel, Word and PowerPoint
• Key account management techniques and practices
• Strong problem solving skills including ability to network internally to leverage colleagues’ knowledge, skills and cooperation to address and solve open customer issues
• Seeks to collaborate with regional and global teams.
• Demonstrable skills in communications at all levels (including face to face, via phone and in writing), both in partner-facing and internal environments, including an adaptive and flexible style that facilitates strong relationship development with senior executives, managers, supervisors and staff
• Understanding of and ability to adapt to differing cultural norms and approaches to doing business across the South American continent and various countries.
• You can look forward to a competitive salary and benefit plan including but not limited to :
• 100% employer paid medical, dental, life & LTD insurance for employees
• 100% match to your 401k deferrals (limited) with 100% vesting at 6 months
• Supplemental Insurance including STD, additional Life
• Priority Pass Membership
• Global Mentoring Program
• Wellness Programs
• Lifestyle Benefits

Collinson is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes differences in all their forms including : colour, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, neurodivergence, family status, age, individuals with disabilities and people from all backgrounds, cultures and experiences as we strongly believe this contributes to our on-going success.

We are focused on continually evolving our purpose driven, high performing culture, providing an environment where our people have the opportunity to achieve their full potential and do interesting and meaningful work. Our company values are : Act smarter, Do the right thing, One team and Be insight led. These help guide everything we do internally in terms of how we think, act and interact, right through to how we deliver value to our customers and clients.

In your application, please feel free to note which pronouns you use (For example - she / her / hers, he / him / his, they / them / theirs, etc).

If you need any extra support throughout the interview process, then please email us at ushr@collinsongroup.com