UEG is an award-winning global agency that specializes in making brands famous. We create breakthrough marketing campaigns by partnering brands with the people, places and platforms that shape pop-culture. Our business specializes in the entertainment, sports, and lifestyle space and provides a full suite of services that include celebrity and influencer programming, music-film-tv/digital-sports partnerships, communications, branded content, and experiential.
The team at UEG is a dynamic group, bringing together best-in-class expertise across entertainment, sports, and lifestyle, paired with a strong understanding of brand building and effective marketing communications. This is an environment where we combine true passion for culture with the innate desire to create industry-changing work for our clients.
We are hiring a Senior Director of Communications. This role is based in New York City and sits on our growing Communications team, with an emphasis on Sports & Lifestyle – and a specific focus on Olympic and sports sponsorship communications.
The ideal candidate will have a passion for sports and deep experience building and implementing holistic, 360-degree communications and activation programs for top-tier clients with robust sports partnership portfolios.
The candidate also is a skilled account manager, adept at providing strategic counsel to clients, has proven leadership skills in motivating, coaching and nurturing team members – and can think like a journalist and execute like a creative marketer to bring stories to life in a fragmented media, and audience, landscape.
This is a great opportunity to join a dynamic team and develop/execute highly innovative approaches to help cement our clients as leaders in their categories, maximize their sports platforms and programming to demonstrate their brand purpose, and show up in culture.
This role will work closely across interagency teams at UEG and within the DJE family of companies and bring an earned lens to the external IAT (interagency team) process. The ideal candidate is a proactive team player, has strong media relationships and connections across key sports and lifestyle categories (as well as creators and emerging platforms), has exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, and is an avid consumer of sports, news and culture.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Experience in sports and lifestyle communications within an interagency environment.
- Understand the value of creative storytelling through talent, content, and bespoke media experiences to push clients with breakthrough ideas.
- Lead a high-priority account as the primary client contact while mentoring a high-performing, creative, cross-functional team.
- Deep knowledge of earned media strategies, activation tactics of product launches, athlete and influencer engagement, and the ability to leverage cultural trends through PR.
- Stay on pulse of the media landscapes and trends relevant to clients’ business; connect content and key opinion leaders to maximize media coverage.
- Manage multiple projects from concept to completion, troubleshooting problems, proposing solutions, and ensuring deadlines and budget adherence.
- Strong financial acumen with experience in budgeting, client billing, vendor invoicing, reporting, and profitability management.
- Build and maintain long-term relationships with sports, lifestyle, fashion, fitness, tech, business, and consumer media and influencers.
- Contribute to new business efforts, including media proposals and presentations.
- Supervise staff through coaching, feedback, accountability, and performance reviews.
- Commit to continuous leadership development and set stretch goals.
- Understand UEG and department vision, contributing to its achievement.
- Assist junior staff when needed.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- 7-8 years of experience in communications, focusing on sports, lifestyle, and culture.
- Olympic or high-profile sporting event experience is a plus.
- Proven success managing high-performing client accounts and teams.
- Strong written, verbal, presentation, and project management skills, with attention to detail.
- Analytical skills with experience using data to inform planning.
- High-level understanding of paid, earned, social, and owned media in modern media landscapes.
- Solid grasp of traditional and new media tools and strategies.
- Proactive in seeking fresh story angles and providing media counsel.
- Skilled in developing media materials like pitch letters, contact lists, and reports.
- Ability to juggle multiple clients, assignments, global teams, and time zones.
- Proven leadership in day-to-day client work, team supervision, and independent project management.
- Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field.
- Agency experience is a plus.
