Manchester City Council is looking for a Commercial Lead who has a track record of leading commercial functions or teams in a culture or creative industries environment. We need a candidate who can shape commercial models, lead commercial contracts, secure sponsorship and connect to wider fundraising opportunities for the Council to support the city’s cultural strategy. The Commercial Lead will be instrumental in identifying opportunities, securing income and making an impact for the city, and leading the investment-related workstream for the Always, Everywhere strategy.
This is a two-year time-limited role based in the Culture Team, which plays a pivotal role in supporting Manchester’s diverse and vibrant cultural sector, and leads the implementation of the city’s ambitious cultural strategy.
Culture is at the heart of the life of the city in Manchester. The cultural offer brings joy, vibrancy and civic identity to our residents, communities and neighbourhoods. It creates jobs, training and participation opportunities, and benefits health and wellbeing. The cultural sector also attracts investment, businesses and visitors, and helps to put Manchester on a global stage.
Always, Everywhere: Manchester’s Cultural Ambition was launched in 2024, setting out a vision and strategy for culture and creativity for the next 10 years. The delivery of the strategy is framed around three themes:
*Everyone – widening access to culture for all, recognising the people that make culture happen and creating a "cultural welcome" to the city.
*Everything – rethinking our scope for culture to take in much more of everyday Mancunian cultural and creative life and making sure culture really does connect with the issues that matter.
*Everywhere – creating more spaces and places where culture happens and delivering a distributed and equitable cultural life for everyone, everywhere.
You will work in partnership with internal and external partners and stakeholders to negotiate and secure commercial income through sponsorship, naming rights and other fundraising mechanisms, to develop new and innovative business and funding models, and to contract and manage all commercial arrangements for the team.
If you share our passion for culture and want to be part of a dedicated and hardworking team, we would love to hear from you.
For more information and to apply, please visit our website via the button below.