Senior Brand Manager, Partnerships & Social

*Candidates located within 60 miles of Santa Monica, CA or Louisville, KY are required to follow our hybrid schedule, working on-site 4 days per week with Fridays work from home. Candidates outside of these areas may be considered for fully remote work.*

Who we Are:

Turning Point Brands, Inc. (NYSE: TPB) is a leading manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of branded consumer products with active ingredients. We sell a wide range of products exclusively to adult consumers, from our iconic brands to our next generation products to fulfill evolving consumer preferences. Our three focus segments are led by our core, proprietary brands including Zig-Zag® (rolling papers and wraps), Stoker’s® (looseleaf chew and moist snuff) along with our distribution platforms in NewGen. Our products are sold in over 215,000 retail outlets in North America and through our e-commerce platforms. Our businesses generate solid cash flow which we use to finance acquisitions, increase brand support, expand our distribution infrastructure, and strengthen our capital position.

Let’s Build Great Experiences Together!

As a team of ambitious individuals, we strive to be the best at what we do. We have an entrepreneurial and creative approach to get the job done. Do you have a great attitude about life? Are you a great communicator with the ability to learn? Do you have tenacity, grit and are unafraid to fail? If you answered yes to these questions, we want you on our team!

About the job

The Senior Brand Manager, Partnerships & Social owns how FRE shows up outside of brick-and-mortar retail: brand partnerships and influencer programs and the brand's social channels. This is one owner for both verticals, running the brand's social channels directly with the support of social agencies, with the mandate weighted toward partnerships and social. The role reports into the brand lead so that partnerships and social run off one brand plan, and works closely with the Manager, E-Commerce so that partnership moments and social content convert on the direct-to-consumer (DTC) business. Digital marketing and e-commerce (paid search, affiliate, site performance, and the DTC P&L) sit outside this role and will be addressed separately. You will set the plan, run the budget, and be accountable for the numbers across both verticals. Other duties as assigned by the supervisor.

Essential Functions

Partnerships & Influencer (about 55% of the role)

• Build and run FRE's partnership pipeline: sports and entertainment properties (most notably, UFC), creators, athletes, lifestyle and nightlife brands, and co-marketing with adjacent brands. Source, pitch, negotiate, paper, and renew.
• Own the influencer and ambassador program end to end: talent selection, deal structure, deliverable tracking, usage rights, FDA warning and age-gate compliance on every piece of content, and payment.
• Serve as the day-to-day lead with partner-side teams (league, talent, and agency contacts) and turn contracted deliverables into content, activations, and retail or DTC tie-ins.
• Run the partnership budget and report delivered vs. committed value for each deal.
• Manage day-to-day relationships with partners, maximize the value delivered under every contract, and leverage partner IP to benefit the FRE brand across all consumer touchpoints.
• Lead partner-driven moments: build limited releases, co-branded bundles, and exclusive offers around partnership moments, and hand them off to the Manager, E-Commerce to execute on site.

Social & Content (about 45% of the role)

• Own strategy, calendar, voice, and community for all FRE social accounts, with Brand Lead, executing daily posting, replies, and community engagement with the support of social agencies.
• Brief and manage creative, agencies, and creators to keep an always-on content supply across organic, paid social, and partner channels.
• Create content hands-on: cut videos, produce engaging social-first content, and manage social collaborations and co-created content with partners and creators.
• Manage paid social and creator amplification within platform policies for a nicotine product; keep every account in good standing.
• Track reach, engagement, follower growth, and share of voice against the competitive set, and feed the findings back into content and partnership choices.
• Drive qualified traffic to frepouch.com through social, creator, and partner content, in coordination with the Manager, E-Commerce; site performance, paid search, and affiliate programs are owned by the e-commerce and digital team.

Measurement & Reporting

• Own a single weekly scorecard across the two verticals: partnership deliverables and social performance, plus the DTC traffic those programs drive vs. plan.
• Prepare monthly and quarterly readouts for brand and commercial leadership with partnership and content ROI and recommendations.
• Define quarterly business objectives with a 12-month horizon and track KPIs to measure progress.

Measures of Success

Targets are set with the FRE brand lead in the first 90 days and reviewed quarterly, with the Manager, E-Commerce consulted on the DTC traffic targets.

First 90 days

• Audit of every live partnership, influencer deal, and social account, with a committed-vs-delivered view and a ranked list of what to keep, fix, or cut.
• One weekly scorecard across the two verticals in use with brand and commercial leadership.
• Partnership pipeline for the next two quarters built, with at least one new deal signed or renewed.
• Social calendar, voice guide, and approval path set, with daily execution running through social agency partners.

First year

• Partnerships & influencer: deliverables delivered vs. contracted; earned reach and content volume per dollar; number of partner-driven activations and drops.
• Social & content: follower growth, engagement rate, and share of voice vs. the competitive set; always-on content cadence held without gaps.
• Commercial: site traffic driven by partnerships, social, and creator programs vs. plan, measured with the Manager, E-Commerce; partnership and content ROI.
• Operating: scorecard and readouts on time; zero compliance findings on partner or social content; budgets held to plan.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, or a related field.
• 7+ years in partnerships, social, or brand marketing for a consumer product, with at least 3 years sourcing, negotiating, and managing brand partnerships or influencer and talent deals.
• A track record of signed partnerships you can speak to in detail: the pitch, the deal terms, what was delivered, and what it did for the business.
• Hands-on ownership of brand social accounts, including paid social strategy, creator amplification, and community management, in a regulated or age-gated category or a comparable high-scrutiny environment.
• Strong hands-on content skills, critical to the social and content function: video clipping and editing, viral content strategy, and design in Canva.
• Experience managing a direct report and external agencies, creators, and vendors to deadlines and budgets.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to pitch a partner, brief a creator, and present a quarterly readout to leadership.
• Ability to multitask in a fast-paced environment and manage competing priorities across two verticals.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, or another regulated CPG category, including platform content policies and age-gating.
• Existing relationships in sports, combat sports, music, motorsports, or lifestyle and nightlife talent and properties.

This role over-indexes on

• Partnerships: sourcing and closing deals, and getting more out of them than was contracted.
• Social: taste, speed, and judgment in a category where one wrong post is a compliance issue.
• Commercial instinct: turning partnership and social moments into traffic and sales, in lockstep with e-commerce.

Supplementary Information

This description is based upon management’s assessment of the requirements and functions of the job as of the date this description was prepared. It is a general guideline for managers and colleagues. It is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities required of the incumbent.

Let’s talk money and perks!

Turning Point Brands offer a competitive salary and benefits.

• 12 Paid Holidays
• PTO (Paid Time Off)
• 401K with company match
• Medical, Dental, Vision Insurance
• Short Term Disability Insurance
• Basic Life Insurance
• Tuition Assistance
• DailyPay

Turning Point Brands is an equal opportunity employer. We hire qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected classes.

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