Commercial Associate

Commercial Associate - Commercial WIP

Location: London, in office

Reports to: Director of Commercial and Audiovisual, Works in Progress

Salary: £35,000–£50,000

About Works in Progress

Works in Progress is Stripe's magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world. In practice that means an eclectic mix of articles on policy, economics, business, technology, science, history, arts and culture. We have a fast-growing audience of people making things happen, mostly in tech and politics. We are now expanding the commercial side of the magazine, including advertising, subscriptions, events, and partnerships and we want someone ambitious to help build that machine.

The Role

You will work closely with the Director of Commercial and Audiovisual working on every way the magazine makes money: advertising, subscriptions, events, marketing, and anything else that could make a return. It is a generalist commercial role for someone early in their career who is highly ambitious and wants to grow fast by working on lots of different things. Most of all we want someone with real commercial intensity who loves selling, loves closing, loves chasing a number, and takes pride in moving things forward every day.

This is not a strategy role. You will be writing outreach, building lists, chasing replies, updating trackers, taking calls, following up with sponsors, testing acquisition ideas, and helping turn Works in Progress into a serious commercial business.

It is ideal for someone who wants a steep learning curve, direct exposure to senior commercial work, and more ownership than they would get at a similar level in a larger media company.

You will:

• Work on the advertising sales process end to end; rate cards, pitch decks, outreach, and pipeline.
• Research and build target lists of advertisers, sponsors, agencies, founders, investors and partners who should care about Works in Progress.
• Write sharp outbound emails and follow ups that get replies.
• Help grow subscriptions with imaginative strategies for acquisition and retention.
• Help build the events business, which will include sponsors and partnerships.
• Run early marketing and growth experiments and measure what actually works.
• Work across paid acquisition, referral ideas, partnerships, direct mail, audience development, and other growth tests.
• Build the trackers, reporting and decks that keep the whole process moving.
• Keep the CRM, pipeline and reporting process clean, accurate and useful.
• Be in the room with clients, partners and agencies.
• Help turn ideas into concrete proposals with clear pricing, positioning and next steps.
• Move quickly between sales, marketing, events and subscriptions without needing everything to be perfectly defined.

We’re looking for someone who: 

• Has a few years of commercial experience and a genuine love for selling.
• Is numerate and knows their way around a spreadsheet.
• Is a sharp, clear writer whose emails and decks land.
• Hungry and entrepreneurial looking for ownership.
• Has personally closed sales and delivered on ambitious targets.
• Has the confidence to approach senior people, the resilience to handle silence and rejection, and the discipline to keep following up.
• Is comfortable doing unglamorous work that helps the business grow. Some weeks you will be talking to famous people and other weeks you will be doing cold outreach to hundreds of small businesses.
• Is happy to pitch in with everything: we are a small team who all care a lot about the magazine and helping it to grow.
• Has media or publishing experience. (This is a big plus but not a requirement. We care more about sales).



We need someone who is happy to work in London in an office every day.