Strategic Partnerships Manager, Europe

Springer Nature group

Job Title: Strategic Partnerships Manager, Europe

Location: London (Hybrid min. 2 days per week)

About Springer Nature Group

Springer Nature opens the doors to discovery for researchers, educators, clinicians, and other professionals. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals, platforms, and technology solutions reach millions of people. For over 175 years our brands and imprints have been a trusted source of knowledge to these communities and today, more than ever, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that fundamental knowledge can be found, verified, understood, and used by our communities – enabling them to improve outcomes, make progress, and benefit the generations that follow.

Short Summary of the Team

Nature Portfolio, a division of Springer Nature, is looking to appoint a Strategic Partnerships Manager to its well-established Strategic Partnerships team. The Strategic Partnerships team is part of the Commercial Partnerships unit and works to develop both new and existing solutions to meet the growing needs of research-related institutions by drawing on the full range of Nature Portfolio capabilities and solutions.

The Strategic Partnership team provides publicly and privately funded institutions all over the world with highly effective services designed to further their goals of creating and communicating the highest impact scientific discoveries. The Strategic Partnership Manager will successfully manage accounts and tailor solutions for public and private institutional partners (including but not limited to sales of custom content creation and content marketing, Nature Masterclasses, Nature Conferences, and other events, Language and Scientific Editing, Sponsored Nature-branded content such as Outlooks, Webcasts, Nature Research Intelligence, and some advertising solutions).

Role Responsibilities:

1. Meet revenue goals through selling creative solutions from the relevant product portfolio to senior decision makers at non-corporate and a selection of corporate organizations in Europe.
2. Build relationships with senior-level officials at academic, governmental, and a selection of corporate organizations; deepen understanding of their pain points and needs; design and present custom solutions based on available products and capabilities.
3. Work with management, develop and implement strategic territory development plan that maximizes both near-term and long-term revenues.
4. Develop effective relationships with key stakeholders in editorial, publishing, product teams, marketing, production, and technology departments to ensure that solutions are executed on time, on budget, and to the customer’s full satisfaction.
5. Liaise closely with members of other SN commercial sales teams to ensure that customer relationships are fully leveraged for all revenue types.
6. Attend industry events to build new customer relationships and cultivate existing ones; make on-site visits to prospective and existing customers.
7. Maintain accurate records of customer data, customer interactions, and key opportunities.
8. Take responsibility for regular and accurate sales performance reporting, forecasting, and commentary for territory.
9. Commit to continued self-learning, making use of all available tools.
10. Undertake proactive business development in new markets.

Experience, Skills & Qualifications:

Experience

1. Significant commercial experience, preferably within B2B environment.
2. Proven track record of key account management and business development.
3. Sales experience in academic, non-profit, government sectors, and corporate institutions, with senior decision makers.
4. Experience in creative, consultative solutions selling, managing a wide range of stakeholders.
5. Experience in media sales.
6. Experience of selling a wide portfolio of digital, print, and offline products.
7. Experience in CRM systems.

Skills and Knowledge

1. Deep familiarity with the global and regional academic and research marketplace.
2. Strong personal presence and influencing skills; ability to quickly establish rapport and productive relationships with senior-level institutional executives.
3. In-depth understanding of the scientific publishing process.
4. Understanding of structures and decision-making process within academic institutions.
5. Knowledge of CRM systems best practice.
6. Proficient public speaking and presentation skills.
7. Ability to collaborate within a complex team environment to execute commercial projects.
8. Excellent verbal and written communication and relationship building skills.
9. Fluent English language skills, with at least one EU language, preferably French.
10. Proven ability to achieve sales quotas.
11. Willingness to travel within territory for client meetings and events.