director, Brand Activations

About the role

As the director of Brand Activations, you will be a true culture-marketing leader, shaping how Starbucks earns relevance with existing and untapped audiences through sports, travel, and emerging culture. This is a culture-marketing leadership role focused on sports, travel and hospitality partnerships, emerging culture, and new audiences. You will turn audience and cultural insight into distinctive ideas, partnerships, content, and experiences that strengthen fandom, create conversation, and deliver measurable brand and business impact.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and execution of a culture-marketing strategy across sports, travel partnerships, emerging culture, and untapped audiences, positioning Starbucks to participate credibly in the moments and communities shaping culture.
• Build and develop a team of top performers who are empowered to win.
• Develop innovative, authentic strategies for each function that position Starbucks as a culturally relevant brand with a deep understanding of audiences, fandom, travel rituals, and emerging behaviors.
• Sports + Fandom: Shape how Starbucks shows up across priority sports, athletes, leagues, teams, hometown moments, major cultural tentpoles, and everyday sports conversation. Translate fandom insights into brand-right partnerships, content, collaborations, and experiences.
• Travel Partnerships: Unlock the full potential of the Delta and Marriott partnerships through annual and seasonal activation plans that extend beyond functional benefits into audience-led storytelling, product, merchandise, content, and experiences.
• Emerging Culture + New Audiences: Identify and build credible ways for Starbucks to participate in new cultural spaces and connect with untapped audiences, informed by cultural intelligence, social listening, and evolving customer behaviors. This includes areas such as gaming, trending food and beverage cultures, and more.
• Build and nurture strategic partnerships with athletes, teams, leagues, rights holders, travel and hospitality partners, creators, cultural institutions, agencies, venues, and other collaborators who can expand Starbucks relevance and reach.
• Drive cross-functional collaboration with marketing, Studio, PR, social, media, loyalty, product, partnerships, retail, and operations teams to ensure cohesive storytelling and seamless execution across customer touchpoints.
• Oversee budget and performance metrics for the activation portfolio, establishing clear objectives and measures of cultural, brand, audience, and business impact.
• Inspire and mentor a high-performing team fostering creativity, cultural fluency, innovation, collaboration, and a deep understanding of the audiences Starbucks seeks to serve.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in brand marketing, culture marketing, sports marketing, travel or hospitality marketing, experiential marketing, or cultural partnerships
• Proven success leading large-scale, culturally relevant partnerships, activations, campaigns, content, and experiences
• Deep understanding of cultural trends, fandom, audience behavior, social platforms, and the evolving media and creator landscape
• Experience building and managing relationships with major partners, agencies, rights holders, talent, creators, or cultural institutions
• Experience managing cross-functional teams and developing high-performing talent
• Strong strategic thinking, storytelling, collaboration, and leadership skills
• MBA or equivalent experience preferred

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, and other voluntary insurance benefits for you and your family
• Short-term and long-term disability
• Paid parental leave
• Family expansion reimbursement
• Paid vacation from date of hire (accrual varies by role level and state; up to 120 hours annually for roles below director, 200 hours for director and above, with higher caps in CA, CO, IL, LA, ME, MA, NE, ND, RI)
• Sick time accrued at 1 hour for every 25 hours worked
• Eight paid holidays and two personal days per year
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
• Discounted company stock program (S.I.P.)
• Starbucks equity program (Bean Stock)
• Incentivized emergency savings and financial well-being tools
• 100% upfront tuition coverage for a first-time bachelor's degree through Arizona State University's online program via the Starbucks College Achievement Plan
• Student loan management resources and access to other educational opportunities
• Backup care and DACA reimbursement
• Compliance with applicable state and local leave laws (e.g., Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act)

Pay

The actual base pay offered will be based on multiple factors, including but not limited to job-related knowledge/skills, experience, geographical location, and internal equity. It is not typical for an individual to be hired at the high end of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.

Schedule

Onsite four days a week.