About Bastion

Bastion is an independent agency that exists to put brands, organisations and people in a position of strength. Our integrated model sees brand, digital, social, influencer, experiential and research experts sitting side by side, working together on major brands to solve their marketing challenges.

At Bastion Experience we create strategic partnerships and brand experiences that real people want to talk about, creating work that excites people and our team.

Our mission is to empower businesses to thrive by delivering actionable insights, enhancing brand equity, and curating exceptional experiences. We possess a deep understanding of what motivates an audience, enabling us to cultivate enduring brand loyalty and engagement. Bastion Experience ensures brands stand strong and distinguished in a competitive landscape.

Role Overview The Senior Manager is responsible for identifying, developing and activating strategic sponsorship, event and ambassador opportunities that strengthen brand health, and support enterprise growth and objectives. This role reports into the GM Marketing Customer Digital (MCD) and is an important member of the MCD Leadership Team.

The role leads the strategic direction, governance and execution of sponsorship, event and ambassador portfolios, ensuring programs are aligned to business priorities and maximise value across strategic pillars. This includes ownership of sponsorship and ambassador frameworks, team leadership and ways of working, risk management and mitigation, and involvement in ambassador initiatives and special projects to drive brand impact and commercial ROI.

The position leads high-impact, high-visibility programs and operates within a complex stakeholder environment, requiring regular engagement with the CEO, ELT, ambassadors and partners to deliver exceptional business outcomes.

Roles & Responsibilities

- Contribute and lead as a member of the MCD Leadership Team – to drive risk culture, engagement and impact across the enterprise.
- Lead sponsorship, event and ambassador portfolios, optimising value before, during and after activation to maximise brand impact and ROI – with relationship management into the CEO Office.




- Develop and embed sponsorship, event and ambassador assessment frameworks to support investment decisions and maximise business value.
- Develop and activate the sponsorship and events strategy to deliver against brand objectives and priorities.
- Oversee annual planning and roadmap development across sponsorships, events and ambassador activity.
- Identify and leverage thought leadership opportunities to strengthen position.
- Act as adviser to community committee, internal and external comms teams, and other business units to form and optimise sponsorship plans and activations.
- Manage sponsorship, event and ambassador budgets, including agency scopes of work, activation spend and financial reconciliation processes.
- Lead agency relationship, ensuring appropriate resourcing, explicit briefing, effective prioritisation, delivery to agreed timelines and standards and regular reviews.
- Build and maintain effective relationships with key channel and functional stakeholders.
- Negotiate commercial agreements and partnership outcomes that deliver mutual value and support business objectives.
- Develop the annual events and sponsorship roadmap.
- Build, lead and develop a high-performing team, fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability and continuous improvement.
- Establish and maintain effective governance, ways of working and risk management practices across sponsorship, event and ambassador programs.
- Oversee ambassador special projects, to ensure seamless cross channel delivery and maximised ROI for the business.
- Develop and maintain strong relationships with senior leaders, ambassadors, partners, suppliers and key internal stakeholders.
- Perform other duties as required by the General Manager of Marketing, Customer and Digital to support business and operational needs.





Financial and Non-Financial Measures

- Brand awareness, engagement and recall
- Successful stakeholder engagement
- Team engagement survey results
- Achievement of compliance measures

Communication Requirements – Internal or External This position requires proficient written and verbal communications skills. Ability to synthesize information and present with impact. Leading discussion at all levels with diplomacy, authority, conviction and commitment. Negotiating with and presenting to most senior levels.

What You'll Bring

- 10+ years events and sponsorship experience, preferably with exposure to insurance, financial services or other related industries.
- Proven success in defining, leading and delivering sponsorship, event and ambassador programs to deliver awareness and engagement among target audiences.
- Proven experience in large, complex format event development, design, planning, resourcing and execution.
- Demonstrated experience in leading partnership programs.

Core Capabilities & Skills

- Relationship Management: Demonstrated ability to influence, negotiate and build strong relationships at all levels, including senior executives. Skilled in fostering effective partnerships and collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to achieve shared business outcomes.
- Customer focused: view the world from a customer’s perspective and builds. processes and approaches to meet customer needs/drive internal improvements.
- Personal leadership: Authentic, resilient and considerate of impact on others and bringing company and personal values to life every day. Acting with integrity and being highly autonomous and professional. Behaves with a high degree of emotional intelligence and organisational intuition.
- Responsible, results focused and demonstrates a sense of urgency.
- Thought leadership: Ability to research, reimagine and articulate new ways forward.
- Strategic leadership and agility: Challenges boundaries and drives change. Ability to translate vision/requirements into operational plans and budgets.
- Commercial acumen
- Facilitation skills: Ability to manage all group dynamics.

📌 Senior Manager Brand & Campaign Marketing - Sponsorships, Events, Ambassadors (Melbourne)
🏢 Bastion
📍 Melbourne