Senior Program Manager (Brand Partnerships)
Los Angeles · 3-4 years experience · Posted Oct 5, 2026
At a glance
- Experience
- 3-4 years experience
- Location
- Los Angeles
About the role
- The Riot Commercial Partnerships (RCP) team is responsible for identifying, building, and executing world-class partnerships with leading global and regional brands.
- The Senior Program Manager (Brand Partnerships) will help scale how Riot develops, manages, and activates brand partnerships globally and regionally.
- This role serves as the central program leader connecting regional opportunities to Riot’s broader commercial strategy while directly managing select high-priority global brand partnerships.
Responsibilities
- Oversee the regional brand partnership operating process, working in close partnership with regional RPPLs and BD teams.
- Establish clear frameworks, workflows, milestones, and decision points that enable regional teams to pursue opportunities efficiently.
- Serve as the central program manager across regional partnership opportunities, coordinating stakeholders, identifying dependencies, resolving blockers, and ensuring opportunities progress.
- Build and maintain a consolidated view of the regional brand partnership pipeline, providing regular reporting, insights, risks, and recommendations to RCP and senior leadership.
- Partner with BD and regional teams to evaluate opportunities against commercial potential, player value, strategic fit, operational complexity, and broader Riot priorities.
- Use scalable tools, processes, and best practices that improve coordination between global and regional commercial teams.
- Serve as the partnership lead for Riot’s relationship with the Esports World Cup (EWC), coordinating internal and external stakeholders and overseeing partnership planning, obligations, activation, governance, and executive reporting.
- Advocate for partner objectives and contractual deliverables within internal workstreams while ensuring partnership activations remain aligned with Riot’s products, players, and brand.
- Coordinate complex cross-functional initiatives involving Publishing, Esports, Games, Marketing, Legal, Finance, Business Development, regional teams, and external partners.
- Oversee partnership measurement and recap reporting, translating performance data into actionable insights, optimization opportunities, and recommendations.
Requirements
- 6-8 years of experience in program management with 3-4 years in Brand Partnership, Partnership Management, Business Development, Sponsorship, Account Management, Strategic Partnerships, Program Management, or an equivalent field.
- Demonstrated experience leading complex, cross-functional brand partnership programs across multiple teams, regions, or business units.
- Proven ability to project manage multiple high-value partnership opportunities simultaneously, establishing clear workstreams, owners, milestones, dependencies, and decision points.
- Experience managing senior-level relationships with external brands, agencies, rights holders, or strategic partners.
- Strong executive communication skills, with experience synthesizing complex programs and commercial pipelines into clear reporting, insights, risks, and recommendations for senior leadership.
- Strong understanding of the partnership lifecycle, including opportunity development, deal evaluation, contracting, activation, measurement, renewal, and expansion.
- Excellent stakeholder management skills and demonstrated ability to influence and drive alignment across teams without direct authority.
- Strong analytical and strategic problem-solving skills with the ability to balance commercial objectives, partner needs, operational realities, and player value.
- Ability to operate effectively amid ambiguity, changing priorities, and multiple simultaneous workstreams.
- Willingness to travel up to ~20-30% annually, domestically and internationally.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience working within gaming, esports, sports, entertainment, media, technology, or other IP-driven partnership businesses.
- Experience working across global and regional commercial organizations, including familiarity with the complexities of developing locally relevant partnerships within a global framework.
- Experience designing and implementing partnership processes, governance models, pipeline management systems, or operating frameworks across distributed teams.
- Strong understanding of integrated marketing and the ability to connect partner objectives to compelling fan and player experiences.
- Experience working with senior executives and providing leadership-level commercial reporting and recommendations.
- Bachelor’s Degree in a related field; MBA or related advanced degree is a plus.
Benefits
- Open paid time off policy
- Flexible work schedules
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Life insurance
- Parental leave for employee, spouse/domestic partner, and children
- 401k with company match
