Director, Corporate Alliances

Overview

Disney’s Corporate Alliances develops and holistically manages complex, long-term relationships with selected brands and companies.  Our mission is to forge innovative and inspirational marketing partnerships around the world to drive incremental profitability through unique and diverse value streams for Hong Kong Disneyland (“HKDL”) and The Walt Disney Company (“TWDC”).

We are seeking a dynamic, entrepreneurial and collaborative Director, Corporate Alliances to lead a team to drive business strategy and inspire collaboration through creative development and proactive management of multi-year alliances to achieve win-win partnerships with a portfolio of local/global partners and internal stakeholders within HKDL and TWDC.  As a Profit & Loss (“P&L”) owner, the Director is responsible to identify, analyse and secure new brand alliances and operating participants (leasing) with sustainable partnership models that will deliver on partners’ business objectives as well as operating income growth and overall strategic value to HKDL.  The Director will also drive collaboration with partners and cross-functional stakeholders from HKDL to plan, prioritize, and deliver creative programs that are in line with contractual obligations and to achieve joint partnership goals.  With a dual reporting line to both Chief Financial Officer of HKDL and Vice President of Corporate Alliances Asia Pacific (“APAC”), the Director is also expected to take an entrepreneurial approach to leverage on alliances and partner resources to create impactful commercial value across various business streams in HKDL (Ticketing, Hotels, Merchandise, Food & Beverage, Corporate Business Solutions & Events, etc) and strategic marketing synergy in key markets such as Mainland China and Southeast Asia.

Roles and Responsibilities

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

• Familiar with brand partnerships and sponsorship market trends and opportunities in APAC;

• Develop strategy and action plan for identifying and pursuing potential Alliance Partners and Operating Participants that have the most potential value to HKDL;

• Understand the potential Partner’s strategic and marketing goals, initiatives, competition, industry, and the current and future scope of the Partner’s business;

• Partner with relevant internal stakeholders in HKDL/TWDC to develop win-win value proposition, business models, commercial terms and top-line financial models;

• Conduct due diligence on financial and operational aspects of target companies and establish relationships with their key executives to facilitate pitching and negotiations;

• Secure alignment of deal terms, document goals, anticipate limitations and issues in execution of proposal terms from both sides;

• Leverage on TWDC business units and other Disney sites to take a “one Disney” approach for common categories, support global partners in extending alliances with HKDL in APAC region.

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

• Develop key account portfolio strategy and annual plan to inspire and prioritize activation programs for a portfolio of alliance partners and operating participants with both local and global needs;

• Maintain a deep knowledge of contractual obligations, alliance partnership objectives and overall HKDL site priorities;

• Lead team to collaborate and steer key alliance partners and cross-functional HKDL/TWDC stakeholders to identify, develop, and execute creative programs that deliver on alliance partner’s business objectives and incremental revenue/strategic value to HKDL;

• Ensure regular communications with key leadership of alliance partners and all deliverables are met according to contractual agreements;

• Motivate team in execution and tracking of alliance partner activations as appropriate across HKDL/TWDC against annual and long-term account plans;

• Monitor ongoing trends in marketing and the industry to support development of annual and long-term account plans;

• Develop tools, processes and reporting to further standardize and improve operations and effectiveness of the team, and/or increase the sharing of knowledge and best practices across the Corporate Alliances organization.

LEADERSHIP SKILLS

• Advanced facilitation and relationship building skills;  

• Coordinate action and drive cross-functional teams to consensus with no direct authority;

• Regularly communicate with stakeholders, peers, and team;

• Inspire others to greatness;

• Positively resolve variety of day-to-day issues;

• Maintain integrity and credible reputation at all times;

• Display “social Intelligence” in reading people, handling situations and influencing desired outcome;

• Provide specific, genuine and frequent recognition;

• Coach/Mentor team members.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or equivalent field.

• Experience in brand management, marketing, sponsorships, promotions, agency and/or equivalent experience and experience in people management.

• Ability to communicate effectively cross-functionally with Cast Members/Employees and Partners at all levels.

• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced matrixed environment.

• Experience leading creative teams and/or agencies to ensure the creative execution delivers on identified business objectives.

• Proven ability to function successfully within a team environment and to build consensus within Corporate Alliances, Business units and alliance partners.

• Demonstrated strong verbal, written and presentation skills.

• Demonstrated strong computer skills with advanced knowledge of Microsoft Office suite and Keynote.

• Self-motivated individual with demonstrated strong abilities in organization, prioritization, and multi-tasking.

• Ability to lead and influence multiple teams and projects simultaneously with no direct authority.

• Natural curiosity and takes initiative to ask “why” and “what” when presented information and data.

• Comfortable with data; ability to tell a story and extract actionable insights.

• Business travel, mainly in Asia-Pacific region, as needed.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Deep familiarity with The Walt Disney Company.

• Minimum of 10+ years of marketing, promotions, sponsorship, agency and/or equivalent experience and 5+ years of people management experience.

• Proven ability to identify key business issues and clearly articulate opportunities for both the partner and HKDL/TWDC.

• Experience in developing a strategy, executing against it and delivering measurable results.

• Strategic and analytical, persuasive and inclusive leader who has a track record of developing and supporting a highly skilled, collaborative and influential team.

• Proven leadership and collaboration capabilities within a matrix organization; proven ability to establish relationships, trust and credibility and follow through on decisions.

• Demonstrated ability to lead and drive work across cross-functional teams.

• Demonstrated ability to influence partners and senior leadership with a collaborative and solution-oriented approach.

• Demonstrated strong business acumen working with P&L and annual operating plans with details-oriented mindset, good at managing operational details if needed.

• Skillful and impactful communicator (verbal and written) with ability to deliver presentations to senior executives with poise, confidence and authentic style.  Fluency in both English and Chinese is a must.

• Proactive problem solver with ability to establish relationships, trust and credibility.  Follow through on decisions and advance critical work in a highly collaborative manner.  Exceptional influencing and partnering skills with ability to integrate diverse and at times opposing points of view to desired resolution.

HKProfessional