IFE Business Development Director
UK Visa Sponsorship Analytics
Occupation Type
Marketing, sales and advertising directors
Occupation Code Skill LevelHigher Skilled
Sponsorship Salary Threshold
£87,300
(£44.77 per hour)
Occupation rate applies
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Description
About Spafax
Spafax delivers content technology and media assets for the worlds leading airlines, Emirates, the Lufthansa Group, Singapore Airlines and many others.
We curate a vast catalogue of global Movies, TV, Audio and Games across every major entertainment market. We provide the next-generation experiences for passengers, so the combination of creativity and technology is at the heart of what we do.
We are headquartered in London, but have offices in other regions: Germany, Dubai, Canada, LA, Beijing, Singapore and HK.
Spafax is part of WPP, one of the largest marketing companies.
About The Role
This role is an opportunity to shape the future of inflight entertainment and digital passenger experiences on a global scale. You will drive growth by winning, retaining, and expanding airline partnerships, combining commercial excellence with strategic insight. Working across teams, you will transform data into compelling propositions, build long-term relationships with senior stakeholders, and bring innovative products to market. As a visible industry leader, you will represent Spafax at key events, influence product direction, and deliver measurable impact. This is a role for a proactive, entrepreneurial leader who thrives on creating value, driving results, and turning vision into reality
Main Duties & Responsibilities
WINING-RETAINING-EXPANDING
Spafax delivers content technology and media assets for the worlds leading airlines, Emirates, the Lufthansa Group, Singapore Airlines and many others.
We curate a vast catalogue of global Movies, TV, Audio and Games across every major entertainment market. We provide the next-generation experiences for passengers, so the combination of creativity and technology is at the heart of what we do.
We are headquartered in London, but have offices in other regions: Germany, Dubai, Canada, LA, Beijing, Singapore and HK.
Spafax is part of WPP, one of the largest marketing companies.
About The Role
This role is an opportunity to shape the future of inflight entertainment and digital passenger experiences on a global scale. You will drive growth by winning, retaining, and expanding airline partnerships, combining commercial excellence with strategic insight. Working across teams, you will transform data into compelling propositions, build long-term relationships with senior stakeholders, and bring innovative products to market. As a visible industry leader, you will represent Spafax at key events, influence product direction, and deliver measurable impact. This is a role for a proactive, entrepreneurial leader who thrives on creating value, driving results, and turning vision into reality
Main Duties & Responsibilities
WINING-RETAINING-EXPANDING
Win new airline for IFE Content, Creative Services and Digital Experiential Products
- Design and enforce a data-driven bid/no-bid framework that scores and prioritizes RFIs/RFPs and sales opportunities, sets clear go/no-go thresholds, and aligns resources to the highest-return deals.
- Proactively engage new and existing airline customers to position Spafaxs media products and services.
- Maintain and publish monthly a prioritized BD pipeline with clear stages, probabilities and next actions.
- Identify key airline customers and develop direct relationship with key airline executives
- Support all receiving IFE/IFC/DIGITAL/OTT RFI's/RFP's by providing, where applicable, sales relevant strategy and inputs targeted individually to each airline and support commercial negotiations.
- Secure contract with at least 3 new airlines based on the research and assessment agreed with the reporting lines.
- Structure complex, multi-year agreements (rev share, MGs, hybrid models) with Finance & Legal; own business casing and approvals.
- Partner cross-functionally with Content, Media, Engineering, Data, Ad Ops, Marketing, and Legal teams to take deals from handshake to live revenue.
- Support regional account directors and related QBR meetings with clear performance narratives, roadmap previews, and data-backed recommendations that translate into next-quarter actions.
- Protect delivery and SLAs by supporting ops teams; support early escalation, fast resolution, and follow up with post-mortems and prevention recommendations.
- Spot churn risk early via health scores (utilization, revenue trajectory, NPS, incident count) and support regional account directors to deploy mitigation actions.
- Champion the voice of the customer internally and support the product owners to prioritize features, targeting, and measurement that remove friction and increase customer satisfaction and revenue.
- Maintain accurate renewal dates, expansion plans, and risk notes in CRM; deliver renewal forecasts with probability integrity.
Sales Methodology & Training
- Deliver internal generic sales methodology & training sessions to regional account teams on Spafax Product & Services portfolio the associated services model and monetization opportunities.
- Lead the creation, development and rollout of a standardized airline sales toolkit and work with product owners and marketing on the creation of marketing materials and offering catalogues.
- Produce and publish(internally) reports on airline, IFE/IFC/OTT market trends, competitive benchmarks, risk/opportunity outlook and sizing, and actionable insights for leadership and regional teams.
Represent Spafax in aviation events, exhibitions and shows
- Represent Spafax at AIX, APEX, FTE, etc. and key customer meetings; deliver thought leadership and secure executive access to airlines and relevant partners.
Qualifications
- 812+ years in IFE business development within aviation, travel media, adtech, OTT, or related sectors; direct airline/IFE/IFC experience strongly preferred.
- Proven track record acquiring new airlines and active network of airline contacts
- Expanding global customer portfolio
- Familiarity with airline commercial structures, CSPs, OEMs, IFE/IFC ops, tech constraints, Data Analytics, and Risk/Opportunity management.
- Strong financial acumen: Proposal creation, servicing models, forecasting, and business casing.
- Excellent executive communication and negotiation skills; comfortable on stage and in boardrooms.
- Hunter mindset with consultative selling; pipeline discipline and forecasting rigor.
- Enablement specialist who can codify methodology and teach it.
- Analytical storyteller who turns data into strategy and action.
- Cross-functional collaborator (content, product, ad ops, legal, finance).
- Ownership & velocitymoves initiatives from idea to contract to launch.
- CRM (Salesforce/HubSpot), pipeline analytics, pricing/yield tools,
- Familiarity with agentic AI platforms
- presentation design
- market intelligence platforms.
In return, we offer
Compensation: Competitive base + performance bonus aligned to the KPI structure above.
A great team of fantastic colleagues who love what they do
The benefits of being part of WPP the wide agency network and access to central resource
Applicants who progress through the interview process may be asked to complete an assignment.
- Spafax is an Equal Opportunities employer