Overview

As a member of the growing OVG Canada team, the Director, Partnership Development will lead the growth of sports and entertainment sponsorship programs and partnerships for industry-leading brands across Oak View Group Canada’s evolving portfolio. You bring a proven track record of closing complex, high-value sponsorships and/or securing major media investments and building lasting industry, brand, and agency relationships. You set the strategy for new category development, mentor junior team members, and represent OVG as a senior voice with Canada’s biggest brands.

This role pays an annual salary of $115,000 - $125,000 CAD and is bonus eligible.

Benefits for Full-Time roles: Health, Dental and Vision Insurance, Pension matching, and Paid Time Off (vacation days, sick days, and statutory holidays).

This position will remain open until November 20, 2026.

Responsibilities

• Own and drive new sponsorship revenue strategy—building and managing a robust, multi-category pipeline across OVG’s lines of business (Owned & Operated Venues, OVG Managed Venues, Third Party Clients and Arena Alliance) with accountability for hitting aggressive personal and team revenue targets.
• Set the marketplace analysis agenda: identify emerging and open categories, direct research efforts, and translate findings into high-impact outreach strategy.
• Serve as senior partnerships expert with internal stakeholders and clients, guiding strategy vetting and feasibility at the executive level.
• Architect full-scale, go-to-market partnership and media investment strategies and lead the storytelling behind OVG’s value proposition to senior brand and agency decision-makers.
• Broker relationships with top media buying / advertising agencies and ensure they are educated and briefed on OVG’s range of services.
• Oversee development of client-facing pitch decks, proposals, financial models, and research reports, setting the quality bar for the team’s output.
• Lead complex negotiations and structure partnership agreements, partnering closely with Sponsorship Activation and Client teams on execution.
• Take primary accountability for achieving and exceeding annual revenue targets and be a team player and collaborator.
• Guide senior-level partnership account management, ensuring retention and growth of secured deals.
• Direct, coach, and develop the Partnership Development team.
• Act as a mentor to Managers and junior staff, helping build bench strength across the team.
• Drive new partnership relationships working event and game nights and weekends as required.

Qualifications

• 5-7 years of proven success in partnership sales or business development, preferably in a sports / entertainment or media sales environment.
• Bachelor's degree in business or related field is preferred.
• Deep, established network of relationships with senior business decision-makers across Canada at the brand / agency level.
• Strong, demonstrable track record of closing large-scale, integrated partnership deals or major media investments and consistently exceeding revenue targets.
• Advanced expertise in contract negotiations, complex deal structuring, and sport/entertainment marketing activation or major media investments.
• Proven ability to set and execute innovative partnership strategy at an organizational level, aligned with corporate objectives.
• Exceptional presentation and storytelling skills, with demonstrated ability to influence C-suite and senior decision-makers.

Preferred Qualification:

• While sports and entertainment industry experience is an asset, we are also actively seeking an experienced media seller with a proven track-record of securing major media investments across OOH, DOOH, network sales, etc. Ideally, this person has robust agency connectivity and/or is currently employed by a major media agency.