Head of Strategic Partnerships & Advertising

About Selecta

Selecta is the largest provider of unattended self-serve coffee and convenience food in Europe, leading the way in vending solutions and specialist coffee services.

Selecta operates across 16 countries within Europe, serving 12 million people every day. Within the UK, we deliver a national service trusted by circa 3,500 businesses to provide digital-first vending solutions across workplaces, schools, universities, hospitals, transport hubs, and other high-traffic environments.

As a 24/7 food and drinks distribution and technology-led powerhouse, Selecta provides millions of moments of joy to end consumers across Europe. Our solutions include digital vending machines, coffee machines, smart fridges, snack markets, and other unattended retail formats.

Purpose of the Role

The Head of Strategic Partnerships & Advertising provides dedicated ownership for developing partnership-led value at Selecta UK, creating investment, income and new-business opportunities alongside core customer sales. The role covers three areas: strategic brand and supplier partnerships, advertising and media, and strategic referral partnerships.

The role is responsible for securing supplier investment and supplier-funded equipment that supports profitable machine deployment while reducing Selecta’s capital requirement; building, selling and growing an advertising proposition across the machine and digital-screen estate; and establishing reciprocal lead-generation arrangements with complementary business service providers.

This is a senior, hands-on commercial role. The role holder is expected to originate opportunities — identifying target partners, opening senior-level discussions, developing compelling propositions and negotiating agreements to final terms for review and approval by the Finance Director UKI — and then to grow successful relationships into repeat, measurable commercial results.

Commercial Origination & Growth

• Originate opportunities across all three areas, identifying target brands, suppliers, advertisers, media partners and referral partners, and initiating senior-level discussions.
• Develop compelling propositions that show partners the value of Selecta’s national machine estate, customer base and digital-screen inventory.
• Lead negotiations personally and take agreements to final terms for review and approval by the Finance Director UKI, progressing opportunities from first conversation through approved, signed terms to delivery.
• Progress existing partnership opportunities from the outset while building a wider pipeline.
• Grow successful relationships through regular performance reviews, renewals and expanded scope, with renewal and expanded-scope terms reviewed and approved by the Finance Director UKI.
• Agree priorities and supporting resources with leadership, focusing effort on the highest-value opportunities across the three areas.

Strategic Brand & Supplier Partnerships

• Develop commercial collaborations with FMCG, beverage, coffee and fresh-food brands that create shared value through supplier investment, co-funded equipment, joint promotional activity and brand visibility across the estate.
• Secure supplier investment and supplier-funded equipment that supports profitable machine deployment and reduces Selecta UK’s capital requirement.
• Negotiate brand and supplier agreements, aligning terms with supplier and category plans, and submit final terms to the Finance Director UKI for review and approval before signature.
• Coordinate the deployment of funded equipment with Operations and Commercial, tracking commitments through to installed, trading machines.
• Monitor partner delivery against agreed terms and manage reviews, renewals and underperformance, with any renewal or change to agreed terms reviewed and approved by the Finance Director UKI.

Advertising & Media

• Own advertising sales end to end — prospecting advertisers and media agencies, building the advertising sales pipeline, delivering commercial pitches, negotiating campaigns and renewals (with campaign and renewal terms reviewed and approved by the Finance Director UKI before booking), and delivering advertising revenue, directly or through media partners.
• Assess the machine and digital-screen estate to establish saleable advertising inventory, including screen capability, site profile, connectivity, content management and the audience data available.
• Work with Commercial and Account Management, as owners of host-customer relationships, to secure site permissions that are consistent with contract terms and the customer experience.
• Define the advertising proposition and routes to market, including direct brand sales, supplier-funded campaigns and media or retail-media partnerships.
• Propose pricing, packaging and revenue-sharing models between Selecta, media partners and host customers where applicable, for review and approval by the Finance Director UKI.
• Coordinate campaign delivery with Operations, IT / BI and Marketing, covering content scheduling, technical deployment, content standards and brand-safety controls.
• Report campaign results to advertisers — delivery against booking, audience reach and sales impact where data allows — to drive renewals and repeat bookings.

Strategic Referral Partnerships

• Identify and approach complementary business service providers — such as waste management, energy, cleaning, security and facilities management — with overlapping customer bases and compatible service standards.
• Define partner qualification criteria covering customer fit, service quality, reputation, commercial terms and data-protection requirements.
• Negotiate reciprocal lead-generation arrangements for review and approval by the Finance Director UKI, including the customer proposition, qualification standards and hand-off to Commercial and Account Management for conversion.
• Launch controlled pilots with selected complementary business service providers before wider roll-out, once pilot terms have been reviewed and approved by the Finance Director UKI.
• Track referrals given and received, qualification, pipeline, conversion and reciprocity for each partnership.
• Recommend scaling, re-scoping or exiting referral partnerships based on pilot results and ongoing performance, for review and approval by the Finance Director UKI.

Commercial Governance & Value Tracking

• Maintain a single partnership pipeline across all three areas, prioritised by financial value, deliverability, strategic fit and risk.
• Ensure every agreement has a business case that assesses value after any volume, exclusivity or other obligations, and is reviewed and approved by the Finance Director UKI, with legal review, before signature.
• Report signed commitments, deployed equipment or live inventory, and realised financial benefit separately.
• Agree benefit-attribution rules with Finance so that supplier funding, capex avoidance, advertising income and referral-generated gross profit are each counted once, and submit claimed benefits for Finance validation before they are reported as delivered.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Pass partner-generated vending, coffee and food opportunities to Commercial and Account Management and work with them to maximise conversion.
• Work with Procurement and Category so that partnership agreements and existing supplier terms reinforce each other.
• Agree delivery plans with Operations, IT / BI and Marketing for equipment deployment, campaign delivery and data, while retaining clear accountability for partnership outcomes.
• Provide concise, evidence-based updates and recommendations to the UK Managing Director, Finance Director UKI and Commercial leadership.

Experience

• Proven track record of originating, negotiating and delivering commercial partnerships with measurable financial results (essential).
• Experience of senior-level prospecting, pitching and closing agreements with external partners.
• Track record of turning signed agreements into delivered value by coordinating implementation across commercial, operational, finance and technology teams, where direct line authority is limited.
• Experience building business cases and working with Finance on benefit validation.
• Experience selling or commercialising advertising, media, retail-media, out-of-home or digital-screen inventory is desirable.
• Experience developing referral, channel or partner programmes is desirable.
• Experience in vending, foodservice, FMCG, beverage, retail, convenience or a similar multi-site B2B environment is advantageous.

Skills & knowledge

• Strong commercial and financial acumen, including investment appraisal, supplier funding, revenue sharing and gross profit, with the ability to understand Selecta’s machine and customer economics quickly.
• Strong business-development skills: able to build pipeline, pitch at senior level and close.
• Skilled negotiator, able to structure agreements that balance partner value with Selecta’s commercial, operational and contractual obligations, including volume, exclusivity and service commitments.
• Understanding of advertising and media commercial models, inventory pricing, campaign delivery and measurement, or the ability to build this quickly.
• Ability to translate an opportunity into a clear proposition for partners and customers.
• Confident communicator able to present concise, numbers-led recommendations at senior level and represent Selecta credibly externally.
• Working knowledge of the contractual, data-protection and brand-safety considerations relevant to partnerships and advertising.

Attributes

• Self-starting originator: opens doors and builds pipeline without waiting for opportunities to be passed on.
• Commercially entrepreneurial: builds new income streams while applying discipline to which opportunities are pursued.
• Delivery-led: judges success on deployed, live and finance-validated outcomes rather than signed agreements or activity.
• Hands-on: comfortable doing the analysis, writing proposals and leading negotiations personally.
• Collaborative: builds strong working partnerships with Commercial, Account Management, Procurement and Category, and shares success on joint results.
• Rigorous and transparent: reports results accurately and flags risks early.
• Resilient and persistent: sustains momentum through long partner negotiations and cross-functional implementation.
• Customer-aware: protects customer relationships and the on-site experience when introducing advertising or referral activity.

What’s in it for you?

• 25 days of annual leave plus bank holidays
• Life assurance

• Five weeks of occupational paid sick leave for added security
• Free parking at our Head Office and other depot locations
• Unlimited coffee and tea to keep you refreshed
• Clear career progression paths with development opportunities
• Strong leadership support to help you thrive
• Employee recognition scheme to celebrate your contributions
• Mental health and wellbeing support, including access to mental health first aiders
• Health Cash Plan
• Very attractive bonus scheme for those who exceed targets

At Selecta, we are committed to equal opportunities, diversity, and inclusion, embracing our differences to achieve our common goal. We are united in our principle of making people feel great, and we are grounded by our purpose to create more moments of joy for everyone through our ways of working. We welcome applications from all individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws. If you require any adjustments or accommodations during the recruitment process, please let us know