Vice President, Business Development

Job description

Learfield is the leading media, data, and technology company in college athletics, representing more than 140 university athletic programs and supporting more than 12,000 brand partnerships nationwide. EDGE is our media solutions business, powered by the largest first-party data asset in college sports, with more than 130 million U.S. consumers and 16B+ data points. We are seeking a Vice President of Business Development to own our sales growth and build a scalable revenue engine across two primary solutions: EDGE Max our full-service media relationships with mid-tier brands, spanning digital media strategy, planning, activation, creative, and measurement and EDGE College Sports Connect, a managed audience solution enabling agencies and brands to activate our proprietary college sports fan audiences across programmatic video, display, CTV, and other digital channels. This is a hand-on sales and growth leadership role responsible for turning Learfield’s broader ecosystem into a meaningful, two-way revenue growth channel, working with our local sports properties teams to identify media opportunities within their existing sponsor base while bringing EDGE relationships back to the properties as potential new sponsorship partners. The successful candidate will personally drive strategic new business while building the team, processes, and sales discipline required to scale. Essential Duties & Responsibilities: Own new business revenue generation across EDGE products, from pipeline development, through contract execution. Develop and execute a comprehensive go-to-market strategy targeting priority brands, advertising agencies, media investment organizations, and strategic partners. Personally lead high-value and complex sales opportunities, building relationships with CMOs, senior marketing executives, agency investment leaders, and other senior media decision-makers. Position EDGE as a credible full-service media partner and compete for AOR, retained and other long-term client relationships. Accelerate adoption of EDGE College Sports Connect among agencies and brands seeking differentiated, addressable sports audiences. Build a repeatable partnership model with Learfield Sports Properties to identify opportunities within the existing sponsor base and introduce net new EDGE AOR clients as potential property sponsors. Build and lead a high-performing revenue team, including hiring, account coverage, quotas, compensation, coaching, and performance management. Establish disciplined pipeline management and forecasting practices. Partner with Activation, Partner Success, Strategy, and other EDGE teams to ensure successful delivery and expansion of client relationships. Minimum Qualifications: 10+ years of progressive sales experience in media, advertising, ad technology, audience solutions, or related revenue leadership, with a demonstrated track record of driving significant new business. Demonstrated success and significant experience selling to brands, advertising agencies, media investment organizations, and senior marketing executives. Proven success winning AOR, retained, and other strategic media relationships, with the ability to sell integrated solutions rather than transactional media. A strong network of relationships across national brands, holding companies, independent agencies, and/or media investment organizations. An entrepreneurial, growth-oriented mindset with the ability to personally sell, build relationships, lead teams, and create the infrastructure required to scale a growing business . Demonstrated experience building, leading, and scaling high-performing sales or business development teams, including hiring, organizational design, quota setting, compensation, coaching, and performance management. Experience working with or alongside a distributed field sales organization, with the ability to create alignment between centralized and field-based commercial teams. Strong understanding of the digital media ecosystem, including programmatic video, display, CTV, audience targeting, first-party data, addressability, and measurement. Proven ability to translate sophisticated first-party data and audience solutions into compelling business value for senior marketing and media decision-makers. Working knowledge of the sports multimedia rights, sponsorship, media, and sports marketing ecosystem. Strong commercial judgment and the ability to identify, structure, negotiate, and close complex, high-value partnerships. Exceptional executive presence, communication, presentation, and relationship-building skills. Strong operational discipline, including pipeline management, forecasting, CRM, and revenue accountability. Overnight travel up to 30% of the time worked. Learfield offers a full spectrum of benefits for eligible employees including Medical, Dental, Vision, Health Savings Account, Life Insurance and Other Insurance Plans, Flexible Paid Time Off (minimum 10+ days annually), including Parental Leave, 20 Paid Holidays, 401(k) + Match, and Short/Long Term Disability. Leave benefits are consistent with state and local laws, including the Colorado Health Families and Workplaces Act. Learfield is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race; color; sex; gender identity; sexual orientation; religious practices and observances; national origin; pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; status as a protected veteran or spouse/family member of a protected veteran; or disability.