Marketing & Communications Manager – London Irish Rugby Club

Result Areas: 
• Development and approval of impactful, strategic marketing plans; 
• Successful brand positioning, management, and development; 
• Driving greater supporter/customer centricity, market understanding, insight and segmentation; 
• Successful and effective delivery of all marketing, communications and promotional activity 
• The development of a leading marketing and communications capability; 
• Excellent senior stakeholder management internally and externally. 

Responsibilities: 
• Leading the development of market-focused business planning; 
• Developing and delivering the LI marketing, communications and brand strategy; 
• Developing and implementing budgeted and timetabled marketing and communications plans for all markets; 
• Delivering outstanding segment and market specific communication programmes; 
• Developing and rolling-out effective product and proposition positioning/messaging; 
• Efficient and impactful usage of the marketing and communications budget and resources; 
• Ensuring that the Club’s key communications’ responsibilities including media relations, photography and image library, London Irish TV, social media, match day programme, crisis communications and website are delivered to the highest standards; 
• Driving maximum value from the usage of third party suppliers; 
• Embedding a culture of creativity and innovation within the marketing and communications department; 
• Developing strong and effective relationships with key business partners; 
• Management and control of marketing-related risks and the compliance with all relevant regulations; 
• Budgetary ownership, allocation, management and tracking; 
• Regular and ongoing market analysis and reporting; 
• Driving the Club to constantly enhance the supporter (customer) experience; 
• Embedding rigorous commercial disciplines and procedures within the marketing and communications team; 
• Leveraging a supporter (customer)-relationship-management approach to enhance communication programmes through greater targeting and personalisation. 

Experience 

• Successful experience of managing high quality and effective marketing and communications teams; 
• Hands-on experience of effectively investing a marketing and communications budget; 
• Relevant experience of marketing and communications within the leisure or entertainment sectors in this country and Europe, ideally; 
• Proven experience of working in a multi-cultural and international environment; 
• Knowledge of professional sport, ideally rugby union; 
• Analytical mind, able to use data to inform decision making; 
• Commercial and creative within a business context; 
• An effective and persuasive communicator; 
• A team player who is comfortable working within a close knit team; 
• A relevant marketing, communications or business qualification is desirable. 

Preferred Skills and Behaviours 

• Commercial acumen; 
• Understanding of both commercial and sports markets and industry; 
• Energy and passion for working in sports marketing and communication; 
• Demonstrates both creative and operational thinking and judgement; 
• Acts as a role model in embodying core club values and culture; 
• Resilient and ability to adapt to changing business needs; 
• Possess drive, motivation and acute attention to detail in ensuring all commercial opportunities to the Club are captured and explored; 
• Committed to meeting the expectations of all customers, valuing the provision of high-quality customer service; 
• Ability to organise events and activities, tracking timescales, plans and financial resources; 
• Emotionally intelligent and able to interact with others effectively; 
• Showing awareness of goals and standards, is able to follow through to ensure quality and productivity standards are met; 
• Ability to take the initiative and achieve greater than expectations.