Partnerships Marketing Manager

About this role

HADRIAN - MANUFACTURING THE FUTURE

Hadrian is building autonomous factories to reindustrialize America. By combining AI, advanced software, robotics, and full-stack manufacturing, we help aerospace and defense companies build rockets, satellites, aircraft, ships, and other mission-critical systems up to 10x faster and at significantly lower cost.

Following our $1.37B Series D at a $7.87B valuation, Hadrian is rapidly expanding our manufacturing footprint, launching new capabilities across welding, casting, forging, electronics, additive manufacturing, and more, while scaling our Factory-as-a-Service platform to transform how critical products are built.

Backed by leading investors including JPMorgan Chase, Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, 137 Ventures, Lux Capital, T. Rowe Price, and Morgan Stanley, we’re building the future of American manufacturing—and looking for exceptional people to help make it happen.

If you’re ready to take on the most challenging and rewarding work of your career while helping create American manufacturing jobs for generations to come, you’re exactly who we’re looking for.

THE ROLE

Hadrian is hiring a Partnerships Marketing Manager to own how we show up through other people’s audiences. That covers both sides of the same discipline: the sponsorships, ads, and paid media partnerships we buy, and the co-marketing and ecosystem partnerships we build without writing a check.

The through-line is leverage. Hadrian is a reindustrialization story with unusual pull, and there is a long list of media properties, creators, institutions, and partner brands who want to tell some version of it. Your job is to decide which of those relationships are worth our money and attention, structure them so we get something specific in return, and then actually operate them after signature.

You will own this portfolio end to end: sourcing, evaluation, negotiation, activation, and measurement. That includes telling us no on deals that look exciting and do not hold up, which is a real part of the job.

WHY NOW

We have a meaningful partnerships and sponsorship budget, an active pipeline of inbound offers ranging from emerging media to large-scale sports and cultural properties, and no dedicated owner. Right now these decisions get made opportunistically and evaluated informally. You are being hired to replace that with a real process and a real portfolio view, while a major brand and talent campaign is in market.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

Own paid partnerships and sponsorships

- Own the sponsorships, ads, and partnerships portfolio, from emerging and creator-led media through event, industry, and large-scale cultural and sports properties.

- Source and evaluate opportunities against audience fit and cost per relevant reach rather than raw impressions or prestige, and build a defensible recommendation for each.

- Negotiate and structure deals, including rate, term, exclusivity, deliverables, content rights and usage, approval rights, make-goods, and out clauses.

- Build and maintain the price menu and portfolio view, so we can see what a given tier of sponsorship costs across categories and what we are getting for it.

Build partnerships we do not pay for

- Develop co-marketing partnerships with brands, platforms, and ecosystem organizations whose audiences overlap with the engineers, technicians, and operators we want to reach.

- Build institutional pipelines with universities, trade schools, apprenticeship programs, and veterans organizations, partnering with talent brand and recruiting on what each relationship is meant to produce.

- Develop relationships with industry associations, reindustrialization and manufacturing organizations, and relevant community groups in our site markets.

Operate the deals after signature

- Run activation end to end. A signed sponsorship is the start of the work, not the end of it. Own the deliverable calendar, creative inputs, approvals, and the internal coordination that makes each placement land.

- Partner with events on anything with a physical footprint, and with communications and content on anything with a public voice, including host-read scripts, creative review, and message discipline.

- Manage partner and agency relationships day to day, and be the single point of contact partners can rely on.

Bring rigor to the decisions

- Define the evaluation framework and the measurement approach before we buy, including what we will accept as evidence that a partnership worked.

- Run renewal and post-campaign reviews, and make honest kill recommendations on partnerships that are not performing.

- Track spend against budget and give leadership a clear, current picture of committed and available dollars.

- Manage inbound offers with a consistent, fast, and respectful process, including declining well. Many of these relationships matter beyond the deal in front of us.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

- Experience: 6+ years in partnerships, sponsorships, media buying, brand marketing, or business development, with direct ownership of deals and budget.

- Deal fluency: You have sourced, negotiated, and closed partnership or sponsorship agreements yourself, and you know which terms actually protect the company.

- Both sides of the discipline: You are credible buying paid media partnerships and building partnerships that run on mutual interest rather than spend.

- Analytical honesty: You can build the business case for a deal and you will say plainly when the numbers do not support one, including on deals leadership is enthusiastic about.

- Activation discipline: You have operated partnerships after signature and can show what you did to make them produce, not only what you signed.

- Ownership and ambiguity: You are comfortable being the first dedicated owner of this function and building the process, templates, and tracking from scratch.

- Communication: You write clearly and briefly, and…