Head of Digital Sales - Times Media

News Corp UK & Ireland Limited; London; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job description

News UK Head of Digital Sales - Times Media in London, United Kingdom

Your Team: This role is a key part of the Times Media Brand Sales Team, a cross-platform team responsible for selling across multiple channels, including papers, digital, podcasts, and magazines. The brand sales team sits at the core of our commercial strategy, acting as experts on our multi-platform products, audiences, channels and brand. Within this team, a specialised digital sales team is led by the Head of Digital Sales (HoD), who plays a central role in upskilling the broader team, driving cross-platform opportunities, and focusing on the growth and diversification of digital revenues.

The Role: As Times Media continues to experience exponential growth in digital revenues and execute a digital-first brand strategy, our plans for the next five years remain ambitious and forward-looking. We are seeking a highly strategic and results-driven leader with a strong background in digital sales, media, technology, and team leadership, ideally within the publishing or ad tech industry with a passion for newsbrands.

The Head of Digital Sales is a pivotal role in our growth strategy, responsible for leading and driving digital expansion. This position will spearhead the development and execution of market-leading digital client solutions, including digital display, branded content, video, programmatic, social media, and podcasts across all platforms. Reporting directly to the Sales Director, the role will focus on elevating our external profile and expanding our senior digital contacts and client base within agencies. Additionally, the HoD will provide critical support to the brand sales team as a whole and all internal commercial teams, offering digital expertise, fostering cross-platform collaborations, and accelerating the growth of digital revenue streams across all channels.

Day to day you will be:

1. Accountable and responsible for the total Times Media digital budget.
2. Achieve digital revenue targets across direct display, premium programmatic, podcasts, video, e-commerce, affiliates, digital partnerships, and programmatic within agencies.
3. Define, execute, and implement the digital sales strategy for Times Media, aligning long-term goals and targets with the overall business strategy.
4. Lead and manage a team of 5 senior digital sales specialists, conducting weekly 1:1 meetings, performance reviews, and overseeing special projects and strategies for their core areas.
5. Collaborate cross-functionally with Times Media teams to foster innovation, share new ideas, and enhance client and agency relationships.
6. Cultivate senior digital relationships within allocated agencies, securing large integrated deals across all digital channels.
7. Analyse data and manage stakeholder relationships, providing timely and accurate reporting to Times Media Exec and Senior Leadership teams.
8. Work closely with Strategic Development, Product, and Tech teams to ensure alignment with digital growth plans and maximise product offerings.
9. Collaborate with the Sales Director to develop innovative digital strategies and drive incremental revenue from existing and new clients across multiple platforms.
10. Utilise News UK’s first-party (1P) data and Nucleus platform tools to adopt an analytical approach in decision-making and deliver high-quality brief responses and schematics.
11. Drive collaboration with commercial teams across departments, regions, and internationally to identify, sell, and implement new revenue opportunities for Times Media.
12. Partner with Ad Operations and Digital Account Management teams to optimise campaign performance and deliver exceptional customer service.

What we’re looking for from you:

1. Extensive digital sales and monetisation experience, with a proven track record of driving revenue growth and success across multiple platforms, including video, partnerships, podcasts, social media, and display.
2. Strong leadership abilities to inspire, motivate, and manage a diverse digital sales team.
3. Collaborative mindset, able to work cross-functionally with editorial, marketing, product, and tech teams to create integrated sales strategies.
4. Expertise in creating and executing long-term digital sales strategies aligned with company goals and vision.
5. Innovative thinker, staying ahead of industry trends and identifying new revenue streams in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
6. In-depth knowledge of the news publishing industry, including shifts in audience behavior, content consumption, and emerging platforms.
7. Proven expertise in digital advertising, including programmatic, display, native, video, social, and podcasts.
8. Data-driven decision-making, using analytics to track sales performance, identify trends, and optimise strategies.
9. Experience in sales forecasting and budgeting, ensuring cost-effective initiatives aligned with business goals.
10. Client relationship management, with a focus on customer success, retention, upselling, and strong negotiation skills.
11. Strong background in digital tools and CRM systems for efficient sales operations.
12. Passion for the news industry and understanding of digital transformation in journalism and media organisations.
13. Expertise in programmatic trading and a solid understanding of the programmatic landscape.
14. Presentation and communication skills, with experience delivering impactful presentations and responses to clients.

We are News UK: One of the leading media businesses in the UK and Ireland, our newsbrands include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS. Our national broadcast brands include talkSPORT, Times Radio, talkRADIO and Virgin Radio UK, and we have market-leading local radio stations across Ireland. In 2022 we launched TalkTV, a major new TV channel available to everyone across the UK, delivering a schedule of news, current affairs, entertainment and sport, with Piers Morgan in a primetime evening show. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month. Spanning digital and print, audio and video, events and experiences, our brands are home to a plurality of opinion, representing the diverse communities we serve. News UK is wholly owned by News Corp.

Life at News: At News UK our people are our heartbeat - they are the driving force behind our brands and we want to enable people to thrive. Some of us work flexibly, in many different ways. We encourage you to talk to us about the flexibility you would like. Many of us work in a hybrid way between one of the News UK & Ireland offices and remotely.

We champion diversity and inclusion, we strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued. We support this through our Diversity Board, D&I strategy & training, creating more diverse content and our intern and apprenticeship programmes. We also have 11 employee-led networks.

We take pride in looking after our amazing talent at News UK supporting the Health and Wellbeing of our staff. Some of what we offer includes:

• A generous pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5%;
• 25 days holiday and up to 4 volunteering days per year;
• Maternity leave up to 18 weeks full basic salary & paternity leave up to 2 weeks;
• Wide range of training available, plus full LinkedIn Learning access.
• Private medical insurance covering pre-existing conditions
• Discounted gym memberships, ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual HIIT, yoga and run club classes
• Access to wellbeing benefits such as physio/massage and counselling

We want to ensure that everyone we meet has the opportunity to perform to their best when interviewing. Please let us know, at any stage, whether you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, and we will do our best to accommodate.

News UK is an official partner of the Journalism Diversity Fund, founder of the Journalism and Disability Forum, and proud member of the Valuable 500. At News UK, we will continue to promote an inclusive and diverse workplace, to help people with visible and non-visible disabilities create careers in media and aim to make our content accessible to all.