Senior Account Manager – Brand Partnerships & Strategy

This signals that the role goes beyond client servicing and includes strategic thinking, pitching, and commercial ownership.

Brand: IBTIDA – Ek Mehfil

Location: Delhi NCR

Experience: 5–8 years

Employment Type: Full-time

About IBTIDAIBTIDA – Ek Mehfil is a cultural platform creating deeply curated experiences across music, poetry, performance, culinary traditions, design, and storytelling.

We work at the intersection of culture, luxury, hospitality, lifestyle, fashion, and spirits, bringing together artists, patrons, institutions, and brands through original cultural formats and meaningful partnerships.

The RoleWe are looking for a sharp, culturally aware, and commercially driven Senior Account Manager who can lead brand relationships from the first conversation to final execution.

This person will be responsible for understanding client objectives, developing strategic proposals, building compelling presentations, pitching ideas, managing budgets, and ensuring that every commitment is delivered seamlessly.

This is not a conventional client-servicing position. The role requires someone who understands ideas, aesthetics, audiences, business objectives, and the operational realities of bringing an experience to life.

Key ResponsibilitiesClient and Account Management

- Own and manage relationships with brand partners, sponsors, agencies, institutions, and collaborators.
- Act as the primary point of contact throughout the project lifecycle.
- Understand the client’s business, brand positioning, audience, objectives, and expected outcomes.
- Translate client requirements into clear internal briefs, timelines, budgets, and deliverables.
- Conduct regular account reviews and proactively identify challenges, opportunities, and next steps.
- Build long-term relationships that lead to repeat business, retained accounts, and larger partnerships.

Strategy and Concept Development
- Work closely with the founders to develop partnership strategies and brand integration ideas.
- Convert IBTIDA’s cultural concepts into commercially relevant opportunities for partners.
- Develop ideas that feel authentic to both IBTIDA and the collaborating brand.
- Conduct category, audience, market, and competitor research to strengthen proposals.
- Contribute to event strategy, communication planning, guest engagement, content, and amplification.
- Understand how a partnership can travel across the physical experience,



social media, content, PR, CRM, and on-ground touchpoints.

Presentations and Pitching
- Build explicit, visually strong, and persuasive pitch decks.
- Structure presentations around insight, concept, experience, brand relevance, deliverables, amplification, and projected impact.
- Write sharp proposals, emails, concept notes, scopes of work, and partnership documents.
- Lead client presentations and communicate ideas with confidence and clarity.
- Tailor each pitch to the client instead of relying on generic templates.
- Work with designers to ensure that every presentation reflects IBTIDA’s aesthetic and strategic standards.

Commercial and Budget Ownership
- Prepare project estimates, commercial proposals, and detailed scopes of work.
- Understand project economics, margins, vendor costs, and commercial feasibility.
- Track budgets, approvals, purchase orders, invoices, and payment schedules.
- Identify scope changes early and communicate their commercial impact.
- Work with finance and production teams to maintain budget discipline.
- Ensure that all client commitments are documented and commercially aligned.

Project and Campaign Management
- Convert approved ideas into structured execution plans.
- Define responsibilities, milestones, deadlines, and approval processes.
- Coordinate with creative, design, production, cultural programming, marketing, social media, PR, hospitality, CRM, finance, and external vendors.
- Lead weekly internal and client status meetings.
- Maintain trackers covering deliverables, approvals, budgets, dependencies, and risks.
- Ensure consistent communication from concept development through show day and post-event closure.
- Be present on-site and take ownership of client servicing and brand delivery during events.

Reporting and Account Growth
- Prepare post-event reports covering delivery, audience, engagement, content, media value, and campaign performance.
- Collect client feedback and convert it into actionable improvements.
- Identify upselling, cross-selling, and renewal opportunities.




- Maintain a healthy pipeline of prospective partners and active conversations.
- Contribute to partnership revenue and account growth targets.

The Ideal Candidate
- Has 7–10 years of experience in account management, brand solutions, experiential marketing, partnerships, luxury marketing, cultural programming, advertising, or integrated campaigns.
- Has worked with brands or projects within culture, fashion, spirits, hospitality, luxury, art, entertainment, or lifestyle.
- Demonstrates strong cultural awareness and understands how premium audiences think and engage.
- Can balance creative ambition with commercial and operational clarity.
- Has excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Can independently develop decks, proposals, strategy documents, timelines, and budgets.
- Is confident while presenting to senior clients, founders, CXOs, agencies, and partners.
- Has experience working with creative, production, marketing, PR, content, and vendor teams.
- Is highly organised, responsive, detail-oriented, and comfortable managing multiple projects.
- Can work in a fast-moving environment where ideas continue to evolve.
- Is willing to travel and work on-site during events when required.

Success MeasuresThe role will be evaluated on:
- Client satisfaction and relationship strength
- Account retention and repeat business
- Partnership revenue and account growth
- Quality and conversion of proposals and pitches
- Accuracy of budgets and protection of project margins
- Timely completion of approvals and deliverables
- Quality of internal and external communication
- Successful execution of brand integrations
- Post-event reporting and closure
- Ability to manage multiple accounts without compromising quality

- What We Are Not Looking For

- A purely coordination-led account manager
- Someone who depends entirely on creative teams to build proposals
- A candidate without strong presentation or writing skills
- Someone unfamiliar with premium, cultural, experiential, or lifestyle categories
- A profile focused only on sales without strategic and execution capabilities

- To ApplyPlease share your CV along with:

- Two or three relevant pitch decks or proposals developed by you
- Examples of brands or accounts you have managed
- One campaign or partnership you led from strategy to execution
- Current compensation, expected compensation, and notice period
- email at [email protected]

📌 Senior Account Manager – Brand Partnerships & Strategy (New Delhi)
🏢 IBTIDA- Ek Mehfil
📍 New Delhi