Director Of Marketing – Sport England
Sport England

Who we are

Sport England is an arms-length body of government responsible for growing and developing grassroots sport and getting more people active across England.

We were established by Royal Charter – which is an instrument of incorporation granted by the Queen – we began operating as Sport England in 1997.

Our mission

Right now, the opportunities to get involved in sport and activity depend too much on your background, your gender, your bank balance and your postcode. We’re determined to tackle this and unlock the advantages of sport and physical activity for everyone.

We’re here to invest in sport and physical activity to make it a normal part of life for everyone in England, regardless of who you are. Together, we can change lives for the better in every home, and in every community, right across the country.

The role

Since launching This Girl Can in 2015, Sport England has become renowned for developing effective and award-winning campaigns which help drive behaviour change.

Now experienced and skilled at developing a full range of campaigns, partnerships and activations to encourage more people to live more active lives, this is an exciting time to join the team.

You will be tasked with inspiring and leading the Marketing and Partnerships team of c. 10 people, as well as working across teams both internally and working with partners externally to plan and deliver high quality marketing campaigns and grassroots movements. You will also become a trusted advocate across sport in England on how to use effective campaigning to change behaviours and attitudes towards sport and physical activity.

While activity levels are recovering from the impact of the pandemic, never has there been a more important time to lead this work.

This includes current campaigns This Girl Can, We are Undefeatable and Join the Movement, all of which have had a significant impact on the audiences and groups which they seek to primarily support, and the consideration of other new campaigns, partnerships and activations in the years ahead.

The postholder will be responsible for the overall planning and delivery of Sport England’s entire campaign portfolio and all of the activations, partnerships and projects that are developed alongside, to support the behaviour change journey. A This Girl Can activation example is Studio You, a free Netflix-style PE resource for teachers to inspire disengaged teenage girls, through fun lesson experiences.

With a new and ambitious strategy to deliver, this position will play a key role in ensuring that campaigns heavily contribute to the plan’s central ambition, which is to tackle inequalities so that everyone can feel able to take part in sport and physical activity.

Day to day tasks:

• Work with teams across Sport England to understand their vision and objectives, and identify and co-build marketing strategy and plans eg sport workforce, health inequalities, volunteering etc that deliver against them. Encouraging teams to set high aspirations, be bold and take risks to do things differently and innovatively.
• Work effectively as a member of Sport England’s Senior Leadership team which is leading the change that the organisation is currently going through to centrally define delivery priorities and change in culture
• Work closely with the Executive Director for Digital, Marketing and Comms (DMC) and other senior leaders in the DMC team to build the vision and priorities for the DMC directorate and support our people in their roles.
• Lead the Marketing and Partnerships sub-team of 10 of the Directorate to build capability, effective collaboration across the team and to unblock any issues
• Secure senior stakeholder buy-in and alignment to resourcing and plans with presentations, writing papers etc
• Co-lead on a number of major behaviour change campaigns, innovations, activations and brand partnerships eg This Girl Can, We Are Undefeatable, 10 minute shake ups, sector organisations upskilling eg Digital Marketing Hub, and development of new campaigns. This would involve:
  • Building a cross-functional team from across Sport England, with select external partners in the sport sector and with cutting edge marketing agencies, bringing together diverse expertise to solve some of the biggest issues the sport sector needs to address
  • Based on solid insight, co-defining the strategy, as well as resourcing and delivery model
  • Enable teams to develop best practice marketing, work in the most effective way and draw in the necessary expertise from specialist teams as required
  • Inspiring teams with what we can learn from outside of the sector to enhance our approach eg from political campaigning, from grassroots movements like climate change or from approaches from Fast Moving Consumer Goods.
• Manage and coach 3x direct reports
• Review and evaluate performance of plans, adapting as required and ensuring learning is reapplied across the team.

 Essential Skills and Experience

• Relevant experience of operating at a senior level.
• Previous experience of successfully managing a multi-functional team to a delivery timeline
• Previous experience of appointing and managing external agencies to achieve agreed targets
• Proven track record of strategic planning, delivery and data led reporting within a brand/marketing environment.
• A previous track record of the ability to attract, retain and motivate people.
• A proven ability to communicate strongly and explain ideas in a meaningful and engaging way to both internal and external customers
• A previous track record of being results oriented and delivering against agree targets
• Strong knowledge and understanding of consumer behaviour and attitudes and the effects and applications of a full range of media channels
• Understanding of insight driven and relationship marketing
• Experienced in communication, influencing and advocacy both internally up to board level and with external stakeholders or partners

About the Directorate you will join

The Digital, Marketing and Communications Directorate is responsible for setting the strategic direction of digital content, marketing, campaigns, and communications.

With expertise in commercial partnerships, social media, editorial, public affairs, consumer innovation, internal communications, and PR and media, the team provides functional expertise, both within Sport England and across our network of partners and customers.

The marketing and campaign team’s role is to deliver world class campaigns and partnerships that drive behaviour change and to position Sport England as the nation’s sector leader

How to apply

Please send your CV along with a detailed cover letter to awalden-jones@sriexecutive.com by 5th June 2022.  

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