Sales & Partnership Development Specialist

Sales & Partnership Development Specialist

Location: Calgary, AB | Hybrid | Full-Time| Non-Union Position

About the Role

At CKUA, we believe in the power of music, arts, and culture to connect people and spark imagination. As one of our Sales & Partnership Development Specialists, you’ll be part of the team that ensures this work is sustainable and thriving. This role blends creativity with collaboration, and relationship-building with results. It’s about uncovering shared values between CKUA and potential partners, finding the right opportunities to connect, and helping grow CKUA’s reach and impact across Alberta’s arts and culture community.

You’ll play a key role in identifying new opportunities and bringing sales, partnership and sponsorship strategies to life across CKUA’s on-air presence, events, digital platforms, and community initiatives. You’ll build meaningful relationships with businesses and organizations, listen closely to their needs, and develop and design creative proposals that support their goals while aligning with CKUA’s voice and values. You’re just as comfortable behind the scenes, whether entering accurate data, translating proposals into operational steps, and keeping a high volume of projects organized and moving accurately and efficiently, as you are in front of a partner discussing their goals. Working closely with teammates in marketing, content, traffic, production, and communications, you’ll help bring forward ideas that create value for partners and support CKUA’s mission.

This role is perfect for someone who’s naturally driven, relationship-oriented, and energized by possibility. It’s about connecting people and ideas in ways that help a beloved cultural institution grow and thrive. Whether you’re finalizing a time-sensitive campaign or developing a relationship that will unfold over several seasons, you’ll bring a thoughtful, flexible approach to each opportunity.

We are particularly excited to connect with candidates who are well-rooted in Calgary’s business or arts community and who can help us expand our presence in that region. Ideal candidates are based in Calgary, but other Alberta locations may be considered.

How You’ll Make an Impact
Prospecting will be a big part of your day, reaching out to new contacts, creating opportunities from the ground up, and following up with care and consistency. Your work days will be fast-paced and varied, blending collaboration and creative problem-solving with the detailed coordination needed to keep up with the pace of media and radio production timelines. You’ll connect with multiple potential partners (virtually and in person) to understand their goals and ensure their campaigns deliver maximum value, while also managing the behind-the-scenes details from timelines and assets to budgets and reporting with accuracy and efficiency.

You’ll work closely with your colleagues to help shape compelling campaigns that reflect CKUA’s unique sound and aesthetic while supporting the needs of sponsors and partners. Once a campaign is confirmed, you’ll coordinate deliverables and support a smooth client experience.

You’ll also take care of the behind-the-scenes work that keeps everything running, things like entering orders, coordinating with traffic and finance, and preparing weekly reports. You’ll work toward individual and team revenue goals, while keeping the focus on relationships, alignment, and long-term value for both CKUA and its supporters.

Your success will be measured through the relationships you nurture, the creative ways you generate value, and the revenue you bring in to support CKUA.

What You Bring

You’re a natural connector who enjoys bringing people and ideas together. You ask great questions, you follow through with accuracy and timely enthusiasm, and you find creative ways to make things work for both CKUA and our partners. You know that effective sales begin with listening. You take the time to understand what matters to others and shape ideas that reflect those priorities. You enjoy seeing an idea take shape, especially when it supports something meaningful.

You’re highly organized and detail-oriented, able to manage a high volume of projects with precision. You excel at working with numbers in Excel, designing proposals, maximizing client budgets, and interpreting data to show impact, and you communicate results clearly to both colleagues and partners. You know how to work independently, but you also value being part of a collaborative team. You appreciate the creative energy of a nonprofit arts organization and are flexible in how you work and adapt.

Your background includes a minimum of three to five years of relevant experience in media sales, sponsorship, or business development, ideally in a cultural, nonprofit, or media setting. You understand how to connect with potential supporters and can design clear, engaging proposals. You excel at using Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Teams, Excel, SharePoint), CRMs, and platforms like Canva Pro and Asana. Experience with SDS, Wide Orbit or other traffic systems is an asset.

A strong understanding of, or interest in, the broadcast media landscape will serve you well here. Familiarity with Alberta’s corporate sponsorship environment, and existing relationships in Calgary’s business or arts community, would be valuable in helping this work move forward. You understand the value of community relationships and know how to nurture them over time. If you're based in Calgary and already connected to its cultural or business scene, you’ll be well-positioned to hit the ground running.

If you’re energized by conversations, inspired by the arts, and excited to contribute to something bigger than yourself, we’d love to hear from you.

Most importantly, you’re curious, tenacious and ambitious and you bring a collaborative spirit and see yourself in CKUA’s values of Community, Diversity, Inclusion, Creativity, Curiosity, and Authenticity.

You’re ready to be part of a team that’s passionate about what they do and committed to making a difference.

Additional Details

This is a full-time position based in our Calgary location, Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre in a hybrid working environment. This role offers a starting salary of approximately $60,000 per year, with the final amount determined by experience and the available budget. CKUA provides more than just a paycheque, offering a creative, community-focused workplace and a strong benefits program.

How to Apply:

If you’re ready to support CKUA’s mission and help create community connections through music, arts, and culture, we’d love to hear from you.

Please apply online through ADP by clicking “Apply” below. This position will be posted until a suitable candidate is found. 

CKUA welcomes applications from all qualified individuals. We are particularly interested in and encourage applications from equity-seeking communities, including women, racialized and Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, and persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions.

CKUA is a donor-supported arts organization that inspires and connects through the power of music, arts, culture and story. With a focus on musical discovery, we showcase the best creative work from Alberta and beyond and deliver it on-air, online and in-person.

In the spirit of our journey to promote reconciliation, we honour the truth of the shared history and acknowledge that we operate on Treaty 6 and Treaty 7 territories.

Treaty 6 territory is the traditional gathering place for diverse Indigenous peoples including the Cree, Blackfoot, Métis, Nakoda, Sioux, Iroquois, Dene, Ojibway, Saulteaux/Anishinaabe and many others whose histories, languages and cultures continue to influence our vibrant community of Amiskwaciwaskahigan, also known as Edmonton. Treaty 7 is the traditional lands of the Blackfoot Confederacy which includes the Siksika, Kainai and Pikani, the Tsuut’ina and the Stoney Nakoda nations including the Chiniki, Bearspaw and Wesley nations. We also recognize the Métis people and the Inuit who make their home in Mohkins’tsis, also known as Calgary.