What’s the role about?
Footballco is looking for a dynamic leader based in Dubai to drive the next phase of newsroom, social, and video growth — primarily on goal.com and Kooora. You will be owning audience growth & engagement across our website, apps, and new platforms — including social media platforms. You will also have an opportunity to support and grow Arabic editions of our global community brands NXGN, INDIVISA, and MUNDIAL. You will be managing our editorial content teams in the Middle East and Africa as well as our network of freelance contributors.
At Footballco we are building a modern football media company that entertains & informs users with credible and original news, reporting, and content from our portfolio of consumer-facing brands. A company that services the fan’s desire for knowledge and brings them new entertainment no one else can make. A global publisher that can ensure the best content travels to fans everywhere.
In this role, you will be shaping our identity every day by leading teams to write, curate, report, and create the best news and content for our audiences on the web and social media. The ultimate goal is clear — transform our brands into an essential follow for the next generation of football fans. You must be able to set a vision for audience growth and development of these brands as well as get your hands dirty to make stuff happen. You must be an expert in football news, reporting, and content — covering teams in the Middle East region as well as teams from around the globe that are interesting to this fanbase. To succeed you must also understand modern digital distribution methods including SEO, newsletters, app engagement strategies, social media, and more. You will be leading a regional team in multiple countries unified by their mission to engage audiences with great football content everyday — by publishing in new ways and by publishing better on our properties. You will be in a position of enormous influence, managing a budget, and making key new hires to grow your division.
This position is based in our Dubai offices. We offer competitive compensation and a bonus scheme.
Your duties:
- Manage and oversee all written editorial output (news, reporting, for Goal.com staff and Footballco portfolio brands) from the MENA region. Develop a clear and concrete strategy to grow and engage audiences, measure performance in all markets, hit KPIs, and drive brand transformation to ensure UUs, PVs, and other KPIs are met.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with stakeholders across Editorial, Product, Strategy, Finance, and Sales to develop and execute data-driven publishing plans that are consistent with the brand’s global editorial mission across a variety of platforms — all while maximising audience monetization.
- Work with our Executive Editor in Chief, Executive Head of Social, and Executive Head of Video to ensure your region is publishing social content using best pratices. Work closely with your social and video teams, ensuring a coherent GOAL offering across all channels in your region, and bringing content opportunities to life in multiple formats.
- As regional leader, you must create, develop, and assign content in collaboration with Footballco’s other regional editorial leaders, worldwide reporters, and correspondents in every major club around the world. Partner closely with our SEO and insights team to ensure your strategies are informed by data, measured, and designed to succeed with audiences.
- Lead and inspire your team. Encourage creativity and experimentation. Instil an ethos where testing new content strands becomes part of regular output.
- Manage a budget with rigour and efficacy. Understand how to use that budget to drive change in the organisation, unlock creativity, remove roadblocks, and more.
- Finally, this job is focused on football. Expert knowledge of the Middle Eastern football leagues is a must. Knowledge of the EPL and European football is also important. Beyond knowledge of the sport, it is vital that you have a love for football culture on and off the pitch – apparel, fan culture, music, gaming…
Your skills:
- Experience as a journalist, editor, or content leader — ideally covering football. Detailed knowledge of the media & football industry in the Middle East, with an emphasis on understanding digital publishing models and strategies, specifically as it relates to building digital audiences via SEO.
- Numerate and data-driven. You must possess a working knowledge of Google Analytics to succeed in this role. Proficient in major social and web analytics tools is a plus.
- Proven management and operational skills. At your level, success is measured by the teams working beneath you. You add value by helping them operate more efficiently and devising winning strategies to hit KPIs.
- Excellent communication skills, interpersonal skills, and the ability to manage remote teams is required. This includes an ability to influence and present to people on all levels. You must be able to clearly articulate analyses to your remote teams as well as all levels of management, including C-suite executives.
- Commercial acumen and ability to cater to commercial requirements. This is not a commercial or advertising role but as a regional leader of the editorial team, your collaboration is important to our revenue success.
- Finally, business language profienciency in English is required. Arabic language profienciency is a plus.