Lead, Partner Marketing, Soccer Speciality NA

The North America Partner Marketing Team works with our wholesale partners to build and strengthen our Nike brand presence and community relationships. Our goal is to know & serve our athlete, and partner needs to land our innovations and key brand & commercial moments to unlock our collective potential.

Who we are looking for

We're looking for a passionate and knowledgeable Partner Marketing lead to support our Soccer Specialty offense in North America. To be considered for this role, you must be a consumer sport obsessed marketer, innovative thinker, a strategic business leader with results orientation, and a team-first collaborator.

As part of our North America Partner Marketing Sport Performance team, you will use your deep and authentic understanding of the NA soccer landscape across grassroots, college, professional leagues and key moments to deliver best in class marketing and consumer brand experiences. This role will drive marketing excellence within the Soccer Performance Marketplace in North America. Reporting directly to the NA Sport Performance Director within Partner Marketing, you will be responsible for leading strategic plans that grow the brand and business in Soccer Specialty while creating deeper, lasting relationships with our athletes*.

Qualified candidates should have experience leading brand vision and planning, orchestrating full funnel marketing, partnering with athletes, leagues, and retailers, defining and activating seasonal plans. Your brand leadership should come from a comprehensive grasp of the Soccer Marketplace and grassroots, a passion for coming up with new and creative ideas that solve the needs of athletes, and the ability to spearhead multiple projects across a matrixed organization.

What you will work on

You will partner with our brand marketing and business partners and key strategic soccer retailers Nike wants to co-create the future of our business and sport community relationships. You will author annual and seasonal soccer specialty marketing plans aligning brand and business priorities while we lead the industry.

You will work across global, geo, and cities to drive a robust concept map and key moments building new consumer experiences that accelerate soccer connections and business growth opportunities.

As the North America Partner Marketing Soccer Specialty Lead, you will:

• Obsess the Soccer Marketplace, Consumer and Partner Marketing opportunities
• Drive and deliver the annual North America Partner Marketing Soccer Specialty plan
• Oversee seasonal campaigns and product integration into programming (including but not limited to in-store marketing, digital marketing, and grassroots event activations across our key partners)
• Collaborate with Cross Functional brand & business teammates from concepts to execution, engaging with our key cross-functional teammates
• Partner with Brand and Sports Marketing to elevate athlete storytelling and athlete integration into partner programming and activations
• Support an end-to-end process to gain insight from consumers including sport trends and opportunities
• Support development of annual and seasonal programming plans
• Manage asset development and distribution across multiple channels
• Identify integrated opportunities and alignments between Brand Marketing and Business teams to build the strongest end-in-mind experience for the consumer across performance and culture
• Track and manage seasonal product sell-in to marketing campaign targets, results, learnings and recaps.

Who you will work with

As the North America Partner Marketing Soccer Specialty Lead, you will report directly into the North America Sport Performance Partner Marketing Director.

In partnership with the Director, you will orchestrate the marketing offense that drives brand storytelling, fuels consumer demand, and builds authentic connections with soccer athletes, key retailers and communities.

You will collaborate with teammates across Nike to build more effective and efficient ways to connect with Soccer athletes across North America. Key internal and external partners include:

• NA Soccer Brand Marketing
• NA Soccer Specialty Sales & Merchandising
• NA Brand Planning & Operations
• NA Retail Marketing & EKINS
• NA Media
• NA Sports Marketing
• NA Communications (PR)
• NA Energy Marketing
• NA Brand Creative
• City Marketing Teams
• Agency & Production partners

What you bring

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business or closely related field or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 5+ years or more eork experience in a partner or brand marketing role, including within a cross-functional or cross-category teams
• Strong understanding of brand marketing, as well as a strong working knowledge of other digital channels including apps, performance marketing and social media
• Demonstrated genuine passion and deep understanding of soccer ecosystem and growing the sport
• Extensive knowledge of the Nike Soccer product and athlete portfolio
• Team-first mentality, optimism, and ability to influence decision makers
• Retail first approach with strong initiative and curiosity to cultivate innovation and brand storytelling
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills including presentations on complex business issues and recommendations
• Ability to balance creativity with organization and discipline in fast moving, ambiguous environment with multiple priorities and stakeholders
• Experience with managing budgets and having a proven record of demonstrating strong return on investment

Functional Competencies:

• Creativity & Inspiration: Creative strategist that drives bold, insight-led ideas and inspires and motivates others to be fearless in their thinking
• Business Acumen / Results Orientation: Find new and effective ways to break through in multi-brand partner environments
• Team Leadership: Leads by example, with the ability to instill trust & confidence in the team and partners. Brings integrity, positivity, and confidence into every room
• Expert Communicator: Leads the Soccer Partner Marketing offense representing Nike and partner needs for mutually profitable brand and business growth
• Marketing Expertise: Expert in leading brand and idea-led cross channel marketing that targets specific consumers with the most impactful levers across our partner ecosystems.
• Retail First Approach: Fluent in Sport Performance Retail environments and modern marketing to be at the speed and in the path of the consumer. Always curious to be at the forefront of retail consumer engagement.
• Product Knowledge: Obsessed with product innovation and differentiation. Expert at shaping and communicating the most relevant Nike Running and Soccer product construct and offerings to create differentiation in our marketplace and delivering premium, cohesive retail journeys that differentiate our product online to offline.

We offer a number of accommodations to complete our interview process including screen readers, sign language interpreters, accessible and single location for in-person interviews, closed captioning, and other reasonable modifications as needed. If you discover, as you navigate our application process, that you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please complete the Candidate Accommodation Request Form.