Strategic Partnerships Sr. Manager (Agency Management)

The Strategic Partnerships Sr. Manager serves as the financial lead for the team and the functional owner of agency financial strategy governance and best practices. This role acts as the teams on/off retainer captain & forecast captain setting clear direction standards and guardrails for how agency retainers scopes of work fees and forecasts are structured managed and optimized across the marketing organization.

This role carries enterpriselevel accountability without direct people leadership. Success is defined by functional leadership financial rigor highquality decisionmaking and the ability to influence peers and internal/external partners expertise credibility and ownership of outcomes.This role partners closely with Marketing Finance Legal Procurement and external agency leaders to ensure financial discipline compliance transparency and strong partner performance across Brand and Category Marketing Social Experiential Store Experience Marketing and Packaging / Brand Development. Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.

Financial Leadership Forecasting & Governance (Primary Accountability)

• Serve as the financial authority for agency partnerships ensuring financial best practices are consistently applied and adhered to across the team.

• Own and manage a multimilliondollar annual agency fee and retainer budget including forecasting pacing variance management and financial risk mitigation throughout the year.

• Act as the forecast captain for the team working closely with Finance to ensure forecasts are accurate aligned to the correct financial inputs and consistently maintained across all buyers and bodies of work.

• Act as the retainer captain setting standards for retainer structures usage tracking and optimization; provide clear direction to peers and other buyers on how retainers should be managed and evolved.

• Partner with Finance and Legal to ensure financial models scopes of work and contracts are compliant scalable and aligned to enterprise expectations.

Agency Scoping Negotiation & Contracting

• Lead strategies for the scoping pricing and negotiation of agency fees and retainers applying deep understanding of agency capabilities staffing models and fee structures.

• Write review and negotiate scopes of work and contractual agreements in close partnership with Legal.

• Proactively suggest and influence contract terms that protect Targets interests mitigate risk and support longterm partnership health.

• Ensure the team is Aribacompliant serving as the captain for strategically sound SOW practices including how scopes are written what they include where they are housed and how they are maintained.

• Hold agency partners accountable to financial and scope commitments; proactively address scope creep resourcing misalignment and performance issues.

Team Enablement & Functional Leadership

• Work directly with buyers and crossfunctional partners to guide financial decisionmaking review scopes and budgets and reinforce consistent best practices.

• Coach and enable peers and more junior team members on financial acumen including evaluation of agency staffing plans cost drivers retainers and negotiation tradeoffs.

• Train new team members on established financial forecasting and SOW best practices to ensure consistency and confidence from onboarding forward.

• Establish document and continuously improve shared financial routines tools and standards that enable clarity discipline and consistency across the team.

Strategic Influence & Operating Model Improvement

• Benchmark Targets agency financial and working models against industry best practices; lead gap analysis roadmap development and business cases for improvement.

• Influence process and operating model changes that unlock agency efficiencies improve transparency and strengthen financial outcomes.

• Anticipate financial risks and downstream impacts across bodies of work; escalate early with clear recommendations and solutions.

Planning & CrossFunctional Partnership

• Participate in the annual planning process aligning agency partners retainers and budgets to prioritized bodies of work.

• Work crossfunctionally to monitor scope execution and proactively problemsolve when plans shift or constraints emerge.

• Build strong trusted relationships with internal and external partners to enable productive positive and accountable collaboration.

Qualifications

• 4year college degree in Business Marketing or equivalent experience

• Minimum -9 years of experience in business media advertising or agencyrelated roles

• Demonstrated marketing procurement or strategic sourcing experience with expertise in agency commercial models fee structures retainers scopes of work contract negotiation and supplier financial management.

• Strong financial acumen with experience managing complex highdollar budgets and forecasts

• Proven ability to influence peers and partners without direct authority

• Highly developed written and verbal communication skills

• Strong analytical and criticalthinking capabilities

• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Excel PowerPoint Word) or equivalent tools

This position will operate as a Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement based on Targets needs. A Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement means the team members core rolewill need to beperformedboth onsite at the Target HQ MN location the role is assigned to and virtuallydepending upon what your role team and tasks require for that day. Work duties cannot be performed outside of the country of the primary work location unless otherwise prescribed by Target. Clickhereif you are curious to learn more about Minnesota.