Innovation Lead (Culture First)

dentsu; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Dentsu is seeking an experienced leader to oversee Innovation & Culture-First partnerships, spanning platforms, creator ecosystems, and entertainment environments. You will shape strategic roadmaps, drive cross‑portfolio initiatives, and work with senior teams to turn insights into scalable opportunities.

The role requires extensive leadership in partnerships and a track record of delivering pilot programs, joint plans, and value across multiple brands and markets.

Qualifications

• Significant leadership experience in media partnerships and innovation.
• Proven ability to scale partnership strategies across multiple brands, markets or operating companies.
• Strong knowledge of global media, platforms, sponsorships, and emerging tech.

Responsibilities

• Develop and scale strategic partnership capabilities across Entertainment, Sponsorship, Creator, and Platform domains.
• Lead senior client and agency relationships, aligning cross-functional teams around shared priorities.
• Drive pilots, betas, prototypes and quick-win opportunities to maximize value.

Skills

Media partnerships

Innovation leadership

Strategic partnership development

Stakeholder management

Executive presentation

Job description

Dentsu is an integrated growth and transformation partner to the world’s leading organisations. Founded in 1901 in Tokyo, Japan, and now present in approximately 120 countries and regions, it has a proven track record of nurturing and developing innovations, combining the talents of its global network of leadership brands to develop impactful and integrated growth solutions for clients. Dentsu delivers end-to-end experience transformation (EX) by integrating its services across Media, CXM and Creative, while its business transformation (BX) mindset pushes the boundaries of transformation and sustainable growth for brands, people and society.

Opportunity & Role Purpose

This role will be sitting in the Connections Team and evolve from heavy Media Partnerships Management to driving the strategic roadmap across heavily Content, Experience & Innovation driven Partnerships (Platforms, Creator, Ents & Sponsorships, ie Sports, Music, Culture).

• The role would suit a generalist across these areas of specialty, that will be working directly with experts at dentsu to develop each capability and roll-out initiatives in each of those.
• Build capabilities that are applicable cross-portfolio and key local ones (25 brands in total) and scalable across top markets. The overarching capability framework will apply to all solutions (Spons, Ents, Creator, Platform), with each having its own sub-capability and application
• Build these overall Partnerships capabilities, from insight, strategic approach, initiative evaluation framework & measurement that spans across the full ESOP (PESO) & connections Model
• Be at the forefront of tech innovation from partners and in the industry, driving Media & Marketing-First opportunities
• Working closely with counterparts in the Connections team to turn the strategic ambition into impactful ESOP partnership plans and specific scalable opportunities, following the client specific planning cadences for brands
• Manage the exploration, packaging and surfacing of Quick Wins opportunities at Portfolio and Brand level to take to brands, accurately tracking traction
• Drive Sell-in to Brands of 1) Portfolio thinking, Brand‑specific opportunities for annual plans and 2) “Quick Wins”
• Oversee the roll‑out of Initiatives for each of the capabilities (activations on the market), managed by dentsu teams
• Plan and drive Betas and Prototypes, taking advantage of agency relationships
• Oversee the media partnerships team and JBP deals to extract maximum value

Context & Responsibilities

The partnership landscape has expanded far beyond traditional digital media. Today’s ecosystem spans global platforms, entertainment environments, creator economies, commerce partners and cultural IP — all of which shape how consumers discover, engage with, and buy brands. To unlock this full spectrum of opportunity, the client needs deeper, more strategic collaboration with its agency and with a broader set of partners.

The Innovation & Culture-First Lead ensures the organisation is set up to extract maximum value from this evolving ecosystem by working to build integrated, future‑ready partnerships across:

Entertainment and streaming environments (e.g., Netflix, Disney+, Spotify, gaming platforms)

Sponsorship and cultural IP partners (e.g., sports leagues, music platforms, festivals, talent)

Content and creator ecosystems (e.g., creator networks, publisher collectives)

New Technology, Alphas & Betas

Required Experience:

• Significant leadership experience in media partnerships and innovation.
• Proven experience developing and scaling partnership strategies, products or capabilities across multiple brands, markets or operating companies.
• Strong knowledge of the global media and technology ecosystem, including major platforms, entertainment and streaming businesses, creator networks, sponsorship properties and emerging technologies.
• Demonstrable success translating insight and innovation into commercially relevant, measurable partnership opportunities and integrated plans.
• Experience leading senior client and agency relationships, influencing complex stakeholder groups and aligning cross-functional teams around shared priorities.
• Track record of identifying, evaluating and delivering pilots, betas, prototypes and scalable quick‑win opportunities.
• Experience overseeing partnership teams, joint business plans or strategic partner negotiations to maximise value and delivery.
• Excellent strategic, commercial, communication and presentation skills, with the ability to operate confidently at senior leadership level.

Working with us

Joining dentsu international, you’ll join a team of 70,000 people. It’s an opportunity to produce career-defining work. Along the way, you’ll team up with inspiring colleagues and encounter a richness of clients, cultures and experiences. We offer exciting challenges, memorable experiences and opportunities to shape your future.

Inclusion and Diversity

We’re proud to be different and that starts with our people. We believe in equal opportunities for everyone. We won’t define people by their race, gender, sexual‑orientation, age or disability. Individuality is what makes us great, we want everyone to bring their full self to work and create something amazing. That’s what we care about.

So, whether you’re joining us, or looking to move to a different part of the business, we work hard to make sure we create equal opportunities for everyone.