Head of Partnerships

JW Markets; United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading sports-technology startup is seeking a Head of Media Partnerships to own global relationships with boards and broadcasters. This role involves converting cold outreach into revenue-share agreements, primarily focused on cricket. Ideal candidates will possess over 7 years of experience in sports-media negotiation, a strong network, and a passion for sports technology. This position is remote-first with occasional meetings in London.

Benefits

Flexible work environment

Equity options

Performance bonuses

Qualifications

• 7+ years negotiating sports-media or archive-rights deals, ideally within cricket.
• Proven network inside Test-playing national boards or broadcaster-rights teams.
• Strong understanding of digital/AI use-cases for sports content.

Responsibilities

• Own relationships with boards, broadcasters, and archives globally.
• Map and prioritise the cricket footage-rights landscape.
• Negotiate licensing contracts that deliver transparent micro-royalty economics.

Skills

Negotiating sports-media deals

Building commercial models

Networking

Understanding digital/AI in sports

Job description

This range is provided by JW Markets. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

Base pay range

Direct message the job poster from JW Markets

Founder, JW Markets (Source industry experts)

Head of Media Partnerships (Cricket Archives)

United Kingdom – remote-first, with periodic meetings in London and international travel

• Reports to: Founder & CEO
• Direct reports: None initially (scope to build a partnerships team post-Series A), utilising outsourced legal support where required

Important: The offer of paid employment is contingent on the successful close of the current SEIS round. If funding is delayed, the start date and terms may shift.

Joining before the funding close means you could accompany the founders in investor meetings and share in the story from its earliest chapter, becoming a co-founder rather than an employee. Therefore, this role is best suited to someone ready to help shape and scale a high-growth venture rather than take on a predefined role.

Company

Kabuni is a pre-seed sports-technology start-up with a fully developed AI-powered cricket-coaching ecosystem that pairs a wearable 6 K camera with a cloud platform fed by licensed broadcast archives. With significant support from global cricket franchises and multiple national cricket bodies, Kabuni is currently raising a £250 k SEIS round to fund MVP delivery and early commercialisation.

The founder and CEO is a product strategist with a history of launching API-driven platforms via distributed engineering teams and has taken software companies public (one currently valued at US $3 bn).

Role overview

You will own all relationships with boards, broadcasters and archives globally, converting cold outreach into multi-year revenue-share agreements that unlock footage for Kabuni’s coaching engine. Success will set the foundation for user growth, future fundraising and talent-identification services.

Although the initial focus will be on cricket, the business will also target other ball sports. Contacts and relationships in the cricket-media world will, of course, be useful to build momentum.

Key responsibilities

• Map and prioritise the global cricket footage-rights landscape (ICC, national boards, broadcasters, agencies).
• Open doors via your existing network and persistent outreach; secure “in-principle” MoUs to demonstrate initial progress pre-contract.
• Structure and negotiate licensing contracts that deliver transparent micro-royalty economics per API call.
• Build commercial models and presentations that demonstrate upside for rights-holders and investors.
• Liaise with engineering and legal teams to align ingest workflows, metadata standards and compliance.
• Represent Kabuni at industry conferences and in the media to evangelise archive monetisation.
• Provide weekly pipeline reporting to the founders and contribute to investor-pitch materials.

Key requirements

• 7 + years negotiating sports-media or archive-rights deals, ideally within cricket.
• Proven network inside at least two Test-playing national boards, broadcaster-rights teams or leading agencies.
• Track record of structuring variable revenue-share or data-licensing agreements.
• Commercial modelling and contract-drafting fluency; comfortable working with legal counsel.
• Strong understanding of digital/AI use-cases for sports content; able to translate tech for non-technical executives.
• Start-up mindset: autonomous, resource-light and comfortable with ambiguity and funding risk.

Preferred skills & attributes

• Multi-territory rights experience (Asia-Pac, UK, India).
• Recognised thought-leader: panel speaker, white-paper author or journal contributor on sports rights.
• Infectious passion for cricket and its global growth.
• Exposure to computer-vision, LLM or sports-analytics products.

Who this role is not suitable for

• Candidates seeking a large corporate team or guaranteed marketing budgets.
• Risk-averse profiles unwilling to accept equity-weighted compensation or start-up uncertainty.

There is naturally a wide range of ways that compensation may be structured, and this will need to be negotiated directly with the CEO based on market conditions, appetite for equity compensation, experience and ability to drive value.

Illustrative only:

• Equity: 1 – 2 % option grant, vesting over four years.
• Performance upside: Success commission on contracted archive hours/licence value.

Culture & working environment

• Mission-led, low-ego, high-accountability culture.
• Fully remote UK team; fortnightly founder day in London; travel to partner meetings as required.
• Fast decision-making, open communication and iterative product development.

Application & next steps

All applications via LinkedIn. Applications will be reviewed on Monday, 28 July 2025 (applications open for one week). Please do not message separately; all applications will be considered, and if you wish to supply supplemental information, please attach it to your CV. A covering letter highlighting the relevance of your experience to Kabuni would be helpful but is not required.

Process

• Introductory call with the founder + Q&A (after initial screening by JW Markets).
• Candidate presentation of a 90-day plan.
• References & offer.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Executive

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Business Development

• Industries

  Spectator Sports, Software Development, and Technology, Information and Media

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