Associate Director, Partnerships

Collinson Group is a global leader in driving loyalty and engagement for many of the world’s largest companies. Predominantly through the provision of travel related benefits within a market leading digital travel ecosystem. The group offers a unique blend of industry and sector specialists who together provide market-leading experience in delivering products and services across four core capabilities: Loyalty, Lifestyle Benefits and Insurance.

The group provides unrivalled insight and expertise around affluent consumers and frequent travellers, creating and delivering products and services now accessible to over 400m end consumers.

We have more than 25 years’ experience, with 28 global locations, servicing over 800 clients in 170 countries, employing 1,800 people.

We have been bringing innovation to the market since inception - from launching the first independent global VIP lounge access Programme, Priority Pass to being the first to sell direct travel insurance in the UK through Columbus Direct and creating the first loyalty agency of its kind in the travel sector with ICLP. Today we still invest heavily in innovation to ensure that we continue to deliver superior customer experiences.

Key clients include: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, LATAM, Flying Blue, Accor, EasyJet, HSBC, Chase, HDFC.

Our mission is focused on doing good beyond profit, which for us means we seek out opportunities for our people to share in our success and that we give back to the communities and people within which we work.

Never short of ambition, the success of our business is delivered through the diverse and talented team of over 1,800 colleagues globally.

**What does a Associate Director Partnerships South America**Do**:
We are looking for an Associate Director, Partnerships to join our team and help make partnerships a reality for our wholly owned premium brands and blue-chip clients in financial services, travel, retail, technology, and the media.

You will be directly accountable for many of the partner relationships in South America except for Brazil. This includes management of existing, growth of new partners/concepts/opportunities, and broad innovation to drive the business.

You will be working within an Americas regional team, with the team responsible for partnerships from the north/Canada all the way down to bottom of South America. The role will be responsible to build partnerships and source deals with retailers, restaurants, spas and other services in airports to support our Airport Experience programs (including Priority Pass, our premium lifestyle brand and the world’s largest airport lounge access program) as well as other Group opportunities.

You will be expected to understand the Group’s businesses and competitive marketplace, identifying new opportunities to deliver successful, best in class partnerships to support other Group opportunities as required.

This is an individual contributor role at first, however building and leveraging relationships without direct authority is critical to overall success.

**What You'll Do**:

- Team Leadership - Align specific partner goals and objectives to the Americas / Global lounge and partner strategy. Provide leadership, direction and motivation to all members of the South America except Brazil partnerships team.
- Partner Management strategy - Understand the broader commercial context of airport experience locations, pricing and contractual terms; execute a regional strategy in line with the global approach that delivers expected results.
- Platform strategy - Understand platform strategy and execution, including management of incentives and experience for all participants.
- Relationship Management - Foster and develop long-term strategic relationships with suppliers that deliver competitive advantage for Collinson Group, including face-to-face meetings with key business partners driving engagement to deeper levels.
- Contract management - Ensure preferential contract terms are in place to reflect the global scale of the business.
- Governance - Aligned with Global strategy and Regional dynamics, ensure effective controls are in place in relation to pricing, marketing, and general promotional activities
- Systems - provide input to the development of and/or use of tools appropriate to the role:

- review and own Regional elements within the centrally managed pricing database
- use of online system for initiating and storing all lounge and partner contracts
- booking system and capacity / yield management system
- Traffic management - Manage strategies, promotions and activities that either drive or divert traffic to ensure profit maximization and overcapacity mitigation.
- Recruitment - responsible for recruitment of new lounges and merchants to further increase regional coverage
- Quality - Carry out competitive and quality reviews and improvement plans
- Innovation - drive product / service innovation in lounges and ai