Brand Partnerships Director UK, Verve
Tue-Thur in-office
3+ days a week in office
Real time omnichannel ad platform
Posted today
Real time omnichannel ad platform
501-1000 employees
Posted today
Tue-Thur in-office
3+ days a week in office
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To empower the growth of the open internet by bringing marketers and publishers closer together across the omnichannel customer journey.
Role
Who you are
- You have a track record of building and owning senior client relationships directly with brands or marketers, not solely through an agency or intermediary
- You have genuine “hunter” instincts — you're comfortable prospecting, opening new doors, and creating momentum in a newly-created role with no existing playbook
- You have an existing network of brand-side contacts in the UK; a specific category or vertical angle (e.g. CPG/Retail, Travel, Finance, Beauty/Lux) is a plus but not required
- You're comfortable with ambiguity and building process as you go — this is a Phase 1 hire into a function that will evolve quickly
- You have strong commercial instincts: you can read an account's growth potential and prioritize your time accordingly
- You bring experience in media, adtech, data, or a related commercial sales environment as helpful context, though the core skill this role requires is brand-side relationship building
What the job involves
- Verve is building a Brand Direct function — a small, senior team that sells and services select brand accounts directly, alongside our existing agency relationships, rather than replacing them. The goal is to get Verve's data, formats, and capabilities into brand planning conversations earlier, and to prove that dedicated brand-side support grows accounts faster than agency coverage alone
- This is a new team and a founding hire. You'll help define what “brand direct” looks like at Verve in practice, working closely with the Global VP of Brand Partnerships from day one
- As Brand Partnerships Director, UK, you'll own a portfolio of named brand accounts in the UK, working as a generalist across categories rather than a single vertical. This is a senior individual contributor role — not a people-management role in the first instance — designed for someone who wants to build something and has the option to grow into managing a local team as the function scales
- You are a hunter first: someone who can open doors at brand (not agency) level, build credibility fast, and turn a first meeting into a durable, revenue-generating relationship. Prior experience or relationships in a specific vertical (e.g. CPG/Retail, Travel, Finance, Beauty/Lux) are a strong plus, as this role has the potential to grow into leading a vertical specialist team
- Build senior brand relationships — Owning relationships at CMO, Global Head of Media, and VP of Brand level, along with key line-of-business leads such as Data, Creative, and Measurement within the brand
- Get ahead of the brief — Getting into brand planning cycles early so Verve's data, formats, and capabilities are already part of the conversation before the brief reaches the agency
- Represent Verve in the room — Representing Verve at brand-side (not agency-side) forums, marketing conferences, and roundtables to build Verve's profile with brand teams directly
- Commission insight work — Working with the insights and data teams to build brand-specific audience stories, category reports, and trend pieces that give brands a reason to meet and stay engaged
- Secure Joint Business Plans — Working towards annual brand frameworks that lock in investment and strategic commitment at brand level, independent of which agency holds the account
- Run the pilot — Building and pitching a defined target list of named accounts, with revenue tracked separately from non-brand-direct-supported business to prove the model
- Co-sell, don't compete — Partner with the existing agency sales team under a joint commercial framework — this role is additive to agency relationships, not competitive with them; revenue is double-counted so both sides are incentivized to collaborate
Salary benchmarks
Our take
The Verve Group provides an omnichannel advertising platform that connects advertisers, agencies, brands, and publishers to people in real time. Verve places a significant emphasis on privacy in its offering, in a space that has received media criticism for intrusive practices.
Over the years, the company has expanded its digital financial services platform and steadily ramped up its acquisitions. It bought mobile DSP company Dataset and is a bidding partner for in-app inventory on Google Ad Manager.
The Verve Group have made a significant footprint in the digital ad marketplace, having partnered with thousands of advertisers. The company continues pushing towards new and expanding markets as it builds a larger and stronger global technology stack.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
14% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company HQ
Carlsbad, CA
Leadership
Sameer Sondhi
(CEO)CEO at Affle. Previously the Senior Director of Business Development at AdMarvel and xAd. Sameer was also Senior VP at In Mobi.
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