Vice President, Sponsorship & Branding – UAE

Vice President, Sponsorship & Brand Development – UAE

Hanson Search MENA is partnering with a global organisation in the UAE to appoint a Vice President of Sponsorship & Branding. This is a senior leadership opportunity for an internationally experienced sponsorship and brand professional who can build a world-class brand through high-impact sponsorship platforms, strategic partnerships, and premium event activations.

You will lead the strategy and execution of sponsorship and brand partnerships that enhance brand equity, strengthen reputation, drive audience engagement, and deliver measurable commercial return.

VP Sponsorship & Brand: Role Overview

This position will oversee high-profile sponsorship platforms and branding  across major global sporting and lifestyle properties — including world-class assets and premium rights holders and global events.

The organisation is sector-agnostic. The focus is not on industry background, but on your proven success delivering significant sponsorship agreements and high-quality activation across major events and partnership programmes.

Key Responsibilities: Sponsorship Strategy, Branding & Activation

• Develop and lead the sponsorship and brand partnerships strategy, aligned to wider brand positioning, communications and commercial objectives.
• Identify, secure and negotiate high-value sponsorship and partnership agreements with leading global and regional rights holders.
• Own sponsorship activation and delivery, ensuring assets are maximised across events, digital, media, PR, stakeholder engagement and internal communications.
• Build premium sponsorship platforms that enhance brand visibility, credibility and audience connection at scale.
• Manage strategic partner relationships, including senior stakeholders, rights holders, government entities, media partners and global event organisers.
• Drive sponsorship measurement and reporting, demonstrating ROI and brand impact through analytics, insights, and performance tracking.
• Lead and develop a high-performing sponsorship and brand team, fostering excellence, innovation and consistent delivery.

Required Experience: VP Sponsorship, Brand & Strategic Partnerships

To succeed in this role, you will bring:

• Proven success delivering large-scale sponsorship and brand partnership programmes within complex organisations.
• Experience across sponsorship deal types such as sports partnerships, global events, premium lifestyle platforms, cultural partnerships, media partnerships, or large-scale B2B/B2C sponsorships.
• Strong capability in rights negotiations, asset valuation, activation planning, and brand storytelling, with a commercial mindset.
• International experience, with the credibility and cultural fluency to operate effectively across the UAE and global markets.
• Strong stakeholder engagement skills, with the confidence to operate at Board, C-suite and senior government levels.
• Proven leadership experience, including managing teams and working cross-functionally across brand, marketing, communications and commercial functions.

If you have the relevant experience and this opportunity sounds interesting to you, please get in touch with our team, including a copy of your CV as soon as possible via the form below.

Hanson Search is a globally recognised, award-winning talent advisory and headhunting consultancy with offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Our expertise lies in building successful ventures worldwide through our recruitment, interim and executive search

We are committed to equality of opportunity for all.  You can access our Diversity and Inclusion Policy here.