Brand Partnerships Manager

Who We Are

Born from a mission to make prescription eyewear affordable and accessible to everyone, Zenni Optical has been changing the way people see the world since 2003. With complete prescription pairs for adults and kids starting at under $10, we’ve grown into a global brand with over 51 million pairs of glasses sold — and counting!

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, we're proud to be the Official Eyewear of the San Francisco 49ers, Boston Celtics, Monster Jam, Ghost Gaming, TSM, Major League Pickleball and more. We've also partnered with tastemakers and designers like Chase Stokes, Jrue Holiday, and George and Claire Kittle to bring our brand to life in bold, meaningful ways.

Innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Zenni — from our revolutionary EyeQLenz™ with Zenni ID Guard™  glasses to our cutting-edge VR Vision Screener, we're constantly exploring new ways to improve vision and enhance lives. For more information, please visit zenni.com/press.

About the Role:

Zenni is seeking a Brand Partnerships Manager to drive growth through integrated campaigns, strategic partnerships, and cultural engagement. This role is responsible for executing initiatives that strengthen brand awareness and consumer connection across multiple channels, including IRL activations, PR moments, and community programs. This role sits at the intersection of partnerships, cultural marketing, and experiential brand activation using external collaborators as a core driver of brand growth and business impact.

This role reports to the Senior Manager of Brand Partnerships and is part of a growing partnerships function supporting initiatives across celebrity ambassadors, sports, the arts, and cultural platforms.

This position will play a key role in translating business and product priorities into partnership strategies that drive awareness, acquisition, and cultural relevance. The role will own select partnerships and activations end-to-end, while collaborating closely with the Senior Manager and cross-functional teams to execute larger, integrated initiatives.

The ideal candidate is a proactive professional comfortable moving between high-level planning and hands-on execution. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to bring cohesive brand experiences to life while balancing long-term brand building with performance accountability. By translating brand strategy into programs with measurable impact, this position ensures Zenni shows up consistently and creatively where culture and commerce intersect.

Please note, there is a preference for candidates in the SF Bay or Los Angeles, CA area.

Responsibilities:

• Brand Partnerships: Manage the strategic development and day-to-day operations of brand partnerships, including sports, ambassadors, and other organizations, to create integrated storytelling opportunities that reflect Zenni’s purpose and drive customer acquisition.
• Manage partnership deal development in tandem with Head of Brand Partnerships including sourcing opportunities, evaluating fit, and supporting negotiation of key terms, rights, and deliverables
• Develop and concept breakthrough brand-forward activation ideas that bring partnerships to life across IRL, content, PR, and commerce channels.
• Own day-to-day partner relationships, ensuring alignment on strategy, deliverables, and long-term value creation.
• Assist in managing daily communications, timelines, and deliverables with brand partners, ambassadors, NIL/college talent, and cultural collaborators.
• Support onsite and brand  partnership activations, including EyeQ events, CSR initiatives, sports partnerships, museum/arts collaborations, and university engagements.
• Coordinate partner content production—tracking deadlines, gathering assets, routing approvals, and ensuring quality brand alignment.
• Help maintain and optimize deliverable trackers, calendars, and partnership documentation.
• Brand Marketing Campaigns & Integrated Planning: Support the end-to-end execution of integrated partnership marketing programs across owned, earned, and paid channels, working with cross-functional leads and external partnership teams, ensuring all initiatives align with commercial KPIs and maintain brand consistency across all touch points.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Creative, Social, Media, and E-commerce teams to develop comprehensive toolkits and amplification plans that ensure seamless execution and aligned messaging across all consumer touchpoints.
• Performance & Measurement: Consistently maintain a standardized measurement framework to track, analyze, and report on performance metrics such as ROI, reach, and sales impact, utilizing post-activation insights to continuously refine brand strategy.
• Budget & Operational Excellence: Oversee financial workflows, including budget tracking, invoicing, and vendor management, to ensure all brand activations are delivered on time, on strategy, and within financial parameters.

Basic Qualifications:

• 4-6 years of professional experience in brand marketing, event activations, partnerships, or integrated marketing.
• Proven ability to connect partnership marketing to measurable performance outcomes and business growth.
• Strong operational skills with experience managing complex timelines, external vendors, agencies, and cross-functional partners.
• A data-driven mindset with comfort analyzing performance metrics to derive actionable insights.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with a talent for building relationships and storytelling.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience leading end-to-end partnerships, including deal structuring, execution, and performance measurement.
• Experience with contracts, rights management, and deliverable negotiation.
• Proven ability to develop culturally relevant activations that drive both brand and business impact.
• Experience working across IRL activations, events, and experiential marketing.
• Ability to translate ambiguous ideas into clear, executable plans.
• Experience working with talent, athletes, creators, or cultural partners.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills across creative, social, media, and e-commerce teams.
• Demonstrated ability to balance brand storytelling with performance outcomes (traffic, conversion, ROI).
• Comfort operating in fast-paced, highly iterative environments.

U.S. Perks & Benefits:

• Annual Bonus Program
• Healthcare: 100% premiums covered for medical, dental, and vision for employees (50% for dependents)
• Basic Life and AD&D with option for additional voluntary coverage
• Short and long term disability coverage
• 401k with up to 4% match
• EAP and Spring Health that gives you and dependents access to free therapy and coaching
• Lifestyle Spending Account
• Free access for you and your family to our digital wellness platform - Wellness Coach
• Generous PTO in addition to our Week of Zen - the time between Christmas and New Year’s to relax and recuperate
• Fully Paid Parental Leave - 16 weeks for birthing and non-birthing parents
• Family forming & fertility support and services through Maven
• Annual Zenni Gift Card - to use towards our products!

Compensation

In addition to other forms of compensation like perks and benefits, the estimated range for this role is $95,000 - $100,000 USD for individuals located in California. The final offer will be determined based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors such as skill set, experience, geographical location, market conditions, and other organizational needs. The Company reserves the right to change, modify, or revisit the salary range for various reasons including business needs.

(U.S. ONLY) Please Note: We are registered in some, but not all states. If you are located in one of the following states full time, we welcome you to apply: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Virginia.

At Zenni Optical, people remain the heart of our mission, even as we embrace technology that moves us forward. While we recognize the immense promise of AI, we are equally mindful of its limitations and use these tools strictly to assist our Talent Acquisition team rather than replace human judgment. We utilize AI tools as a collaborative partner to create content–such as job descriptions, interview questions, and outreach messaging–and review resumes, but we maintain a firm commitment to human-led hiring where AI never makes a final decision. Every selection is determined by a member of our team to ensure every candidate is personally valued by a human rather than an algorithm.

We look forward to hearing from you!

We strive to build a diverse team of individuals with a broad range of experience and perspectives. We encourage you to apply even if you don’t feel you meet all the qualifications.

Zenni Optical is an equal opportunity workplace and considers applications without regard to race, color, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or Veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.