Background: 

The IRONMAN Group began in 1978 as a single race in Hawaii and now comprises a global platform of 235 events across triathlon, running and cycling, spanning 55 countries and six continents. The company is the world’s largest operator of mass participation sports events, offering a vast portfolio that includes the iconic IRONMAN Triathlon Series, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series, the recently launched trail running series, UTMB World Series and premier mountain bike cycling series, the Epic Series. In each of its events across triathlon, road running, mountain biking, and trail running, The IRONMAN Group uniquely supports its participants from the moment they embark on their journey through race day. Much more than an event organizer, The IRONMAN Group is a lifestyle platform that fosters community and is passionate about fulfilling its mission to provide exceptional, life-changing experiences for athletes of all levels. While U.S.-based, the business is global with the majority of revenues and nearly three quarters of races outside of North America.

IRONMAN, the company’s flagship, is one of the world’s great lifestyle brands, with high unaided brand recognition globally. IRONMAN’s brand affinity is so high that its customers regularly tattoo the iconic “M-Dot” logo on their bodies. Due to this strong emotional connection with athletes and fans worldwide, IRONMAN is a premier sponsorship partner for global brands like Hoka, Qatar Airways, Athletic Brewing, Breitling and Vinfast, offering a platform for these brands to intimately engage with desirable communities, utilizing global media platforms and state-of-the-art event activations. To broaden the reach of its existing race content, IRONMAN has developed its own in-house content creation group and partnered with YouTube, Facebook Watch, Outside TV and DAZN to provide fans with livestream access to watch their favorite triathletes compete. In 2023, livestreamed IRONMAN events averaged 550k+ engaged viewers with more than 125,000 hours watched per event. On the heels of such success, IRONMAN is growing its innovative livestreaming and athlete data/training platforms in triathlon, as well as the fast-growing area of trail running. The company also serves as an attractive partner for local communities around the world as they seek to develop tourist destinations and attract The IRONMAN Group’s athletes and fans as visitors. In the past decade alone, The IRONMAN Group has generated well over $1 billion of economic impact for its host community partners.

Serving customers before and after race day is an area of strong focus, as the company provides a broad community for its devotees. Athletes, coaches and supporters can choose from a diverse range of digital products including training regimens, support modules and tracking apps. In addition, athletes can find clubs, community training groups and philanthropic endeavors to encourage and celebrate participation. Iconic destinations, scenic routes, safe courses and best-in-class operations have solidified The IRONMAN Group as the premier leader in endurance sports amongst its vast network of athletes and fans alike. The company is also proudly committed to its status as a long-term stakeholder in its event communities and has, in addition to direct economic impact, invested over $500 million in community projects through its non-profit affiliate, The IRONMAN Foundation.

The IRONMAN Group is a privately held company headquartered in Tampa, Florida and jointly owned by Advance (majority owner), Orkila Capital and management. Advance (www.advance.com) is a private, family-held business that owns and invests in companies across media, entertainment, technology, communications, education and other promising growth sectors. Orkila Capital (www.orkilacapital.com) is a growth equity investment firm that pursues proprietary growth equity investment opportunities in the media, entertainment and consumer sectors.

For more information on IRONMAN, please visit https://www.ironman.com/

Any interested candidates should contact TurnkeyZRG directly. 

Contacting *The IRONMAN Group* will only delay consideration of your qualifications. 

Position Summary: 

The IRONMAN Group is seeking a smart, creative, and results-oriented sales leader to drive the acquisition of marquee and premier sponsorships and accelerate the growth of the organization. IRONMAN partners with highly visible, global corporations with exceptional brand recognition and consumer followings. Understanding the IRONMAN platform and how to successfully promote it in the eyes of corporate partners will be essential for success.

The SVP/EVP of Global Partnerships will have a proven track record of selling innovative partnerships in traditional sports but also preferably in non-traditional spectator sports and have exhibited creativity in devising platforms and activations for blue-chip brands. The executive will also have an established network of relationships at the C-suite and boardroom levels and will exhibit the solutions-based approach and high-touch professionalism that properly reflect the culture of and opportunities within The IRONMAN Group. S/he will approach sales with a thoughtful, thorough, and structured process and will have notable experience assembling and leading a global high-performing sales team to develop creative partnerships platforms and devise compelling solutions to meet partner objectives.

This individual will work hand-in-hand with the Chief Business Officer, Chief Merchandising Officer, Regional Managing Directors and other key leaders to evolve The IRONMAN Group. The uniqueness of the Group’s brands, its committed following of athletes, and the growing nature of endurance sports provide an exceptional opportunity to break new ground in global sports.

The IRONMAN Group recently appointed Scott DeRue as its new CEO following the retirement of Andrew Messick who led The IRONMAN Group for 12 years, overseeing the company’s expansion from triathlon to multi-sport globally, and more than tripling revenue from about $90 million in 2011 to over $300 million today. Now that the company has fully recovered from the difficult COVID period and is back on a growth trajectory, Andrew has made the decision to retire as CEO. With The IRONMAN Group entering its next chapter of growth, the timing is right for the new executive to highly contribute to organization’s success. 

Through a combination of improving and expanding the core series and events, as well as unlocking new revenue opportunities by furthering The IRONMAN Group’s reputation as a best-in-class, direct-to-consumer (D2C) business, the SVP/EVP of Partnerships will contribute to drive performance and create value in an environment ripe with opportunity. This individual will have responsibility for the leadership of the Global Partnership team, best-in-class partnerships management and sales efforts of the company. Reporting to the Chief Business Officer, S/he will build trust internally with the Global Partnerships team, Regional Teams and externally with partners, host cities, through excellent communication and ethic, and strong management and results.

The role will be based at The IRONMAN Group’s headquarters in Tampa, FL and will involve extensive (and fun) travel to the company’s events, operating hubs and partners locations all over the world. 

Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Build and execute a strategic plan to grow corporate sponsorship revenue for the various series. Effectively market global partnership opportunities, leveraging events across all regions to companies with centralized decision-making based in North America.

• Create an asset/inventory packaging approach that is solutions-based and creative, maximizing aggregate value and creating clear distinctions between various tiers of partner involvement with The IRONMAN Group series.

• Serve as a partner-focused, highly collaborative leader to create new and innovative platforms around IRONMAN events and through the athlete’s journey which fit their unique needs.

• Understand and leverage technology, live streaming, and digital content as important aspects of the partnership platforms.

• Identify potential new sales strategies, including tenders in key categories and new streams of sponsorship revenue, and strategically develop the relationships and resources necessary for success.

• Bring clarity and insight to each partner’s financial and promotional objectives by leveraging relevant analytics and metrics and utilizing these to demonstrate tangible ROI.

• Develop, implement and maintain sales dashboards to provide clear reporting of sales activities vs. goals and budget

• Ensure the series and events remain best in class in each of their respective sport segments by providing exceptional experiences through partner activations.

• Ensure that partnership and activation teams deliver best in class partnerships through creation of series by series playbooks for roll out at events across the world.

• Ensure that partnership team provides in a timely manner reporting through Quarterly and Annual business reviews focused on agreed KPIs with partners based on internal and third party data

• Manage the BI team to ensure partnership structure is best in class with value and KPIs based on internal and external third party valuation

• Build, develop, manage, and retain a strong sales team of talented and passionate individuals who are committed to IRONMAN.

• Build the team through the development and retention of talented people across all functions and geographies.

Preferred Qualifications:

Driving Performance and Results

• Executing on an assertive but also “white-glove”, partner-focused strategy that brings in and maximizes sponsorship revenue.

• Exhibiting a high propension of listening to prospects and solution-based approach that maximizes the value proposition.

• Having the ingenuity and commitment to “getting the deal done.”

• Understanding the nuances and complexity of sponsorship sales and working successfully within such an environment.

• Developing credibility with all potential corporate partners as a strong leader for The IRONMAN Group.

• Benchmarks own performance against industry best practices.

Creative and Strategic Thinking

Motivated and capable of quickly learning the specificity of each sports community and culture, the specificities of the athlete journey by product and the competitive landscape in each sport

• Focus on finding ways to elevate the athlete journey providing solutions through equipment and services through authentic and successful partnerships with endemic and non-endemic brands.

• Maintaining The IRONMAN Group’s level of excellence and innovation when partnering with first class organizations.

• Bringing the mentality of a classically-trained brand executive to convey what the IRONMAN brand stands for and how it can accomplish the partners’ objectives.

• Delivering a disciplined approach to sponsorship sales while remaining acutely aware of the uniqueness of the IRONMAN Group culture.

Understands The IRONMAN Group’s unique areas of competitive advantage and crafts strategies and tactics to leverage them.

Keen Relationship Building Skills

• Nurturing and managing strong relationships with high-level executive partners and key stakeholders.

• Having a high touch, responsive personal style and communicating in an articulate, open, and sincere manner that engenders trust with all constituencies.

• Demonstrating a willingness to make tough decisions, but always treating people fairly and with respect.

• Projecting an unflappable and even-keeled style characterized by openness, approachability, and confidence without arrogance.

• Displaying the highest personal integrity and ethics.

Leading People

• Identifies and leverages individual strengths and potential within the team while maintaining a team-first, collaborative environment.

• Communicates long-term direction and collaborates with team on how to reach it, providing enthusiastic guidance for the next growth phase.

• Demonstrates high emotional intelligence in interactions with all constituents – employees and partners; knows how to challenge team members to inspire performance without sacrificing a nourishing and collaborative culture.

Background Requirements: 

Industry Experience

Consumer and/or media broadly with special consideration given to those with experience in lifestyle brands, sports, live entertainment and events, and/or hospitality.

Broad-based Leadership

Experience, preferably as a VP/SVP of sales with full functional oversight of a sales organization as part of multifunctional team and matrixed organization of relevant size and scale (>50 FTEs / >$60 million in partnerships revenue).

Global

Has a global perspective from having led geographically dispersed teams and international businesses with operations around the world. Highly attuned to challenges and opportunities associated with diverse cultures.

Stakeholder Management Skills

Proven stakeholder management skills, including with business partners.

“*IRONMAN will consider international candidates who are open to relocating to their Global Headquarters in Tampa, Florida, subject to the candidate having or obtaining work authorization in the USA**