Chris Yeo

• Contract role July 2024-Present
• Develop a commercial strategy to ensure the growth of membership and partnership sales for Retail NZ, the countries largest member-based organisation.
• Secured over $150,000 of new revenue to date.

• To maximise the long term value of commercial partnerships for the Hurricanes.
• To lead and manage the direction and work outputs of the Commercial team covering sales, event delivery, and relationship management.
• To lead and manage all commercial activity for the Hurricanes including maximising returns from Partnerships, Game, Event, Merchandising, Fan-Engagement, Ticketing, Membership, Corporate Hospitality and new projects.
• Secured over $4M in commercial rights throughout my time as GM Commercial.

Highlights

• Launched the inaugural Women's Super Rugby competition into New Zealand, Super Rugby Aupiki.
• Led all clubs in securing the most in commercial revenue for Women's Super Rugby Team, Hurricanes Poua.
• Led first-to-market, WEB3 initiative to allow Hurricanes fans the chance to design their own jersey virtually.
• Led the franchise in the change-over of Apparel, LED signage and e-Commerce partnerships.
• Negotiated the rights for all Super Rugby clubs in AU, NZ and Fiji to feature in Rugby 24 Video Game from Big Ant Studios, including in-game signage rights for sponsors and commercial partners.

• Executive management position to set-up the New Zealand Office to extend the global offering of Techfront to 11 offices worldwide under Global Sports Commerce. My role was to integrate 3 companies into 1, set up the structures and processes, aligning the global vision and values into NZ, develop the commercial strategy with new and existing clients, drive profitable innovation, develop engagement of the in-game technologies to all NZ Based rights-holders, brands, agencies and broadcasters while maintaining our new rights-holders in NZ Rugby and Cricket.

Highlights:

• Secured over $9.67m in commercial revenues for TFNZ over 5 years (brands, sponsorship, broadcast/media, commercial business)
• Negotiating and managing a number of sponsorship and commercial rights deals for both rights-holders and brands in NZ (approx. $1.5m over 4 years in commercial revenue)
• Being part of the team to successfully negotiate the broadcast rights between Star Sport India and New Zealand Cricket, making NZC the only association outside of India for the broadcaster circa ($2mUSD per season)
• Negotiating the Blackcaps Front of Shirt rights for the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy in England ($250,000USD)
• Managing global and local sales partners to drive additional revenue into NZ on behalf of NZ Cricket. (6 partners between $70-$100k per partner)
• Managing the in-stadia LED, Digital Signage, Production and Commercial Rights for the past 4 International Cricket Season with NZ Cricket – approx. 22 games per season. (circa $1.5m per season)
• Successful inception of Techfront NZ by combining Monstavision, Carnegie and TFO into 1 company, Techfront NZ.
• Winning the digital LED and Signage rights for the U19 ICC Cricket World Cup- including managing the end-to-end implementation of over 48 games in NZ. (circa $350,000).
• Winning the in-stadia digital LED and Signage rights for the Lions Tour to NZ 2018, including managing the end-to-end implementation for all 7 games in NZ including Live Sites/Fan Zones in NZ. (circa $500,000)
• Winning the digital in-stadia LED, Production and Signage rights to the FIH Pro Hockey League in NZ, including managing the end-to-end implementation for all 16 games in NZ. 4-year deal. (circa $299,000 per season).
• Winning the rights to be LED supplier and commercial partner of the Wellington Phoenix for all home games in NZ.
• Successfully winning the in-stadia LED rights for the newly created Global Rapid Rugby competition.
• Managing the installations in NZ, Fiji, Hong Kong and Singapore. 4-year deal (circa $150,000 per season).
• Negotiating and managing a number of sponsorship and commercial rights deals for both rights-holders and brands in NZ (approx. $1.5m over the past 4 years in sponsorship revenue).
• Currently delivering Virtual LED, Stadia and Grass Replacement technology into New Zealand to drive additional revenue and exposure opportunities to multiple territories with the sporting broadcast.
• Currently tendering for the ICC Women’s & Men’s Cricket World Cups in Aus and NZ.
• Implimented a sponsorship ROI program into NZ to track brands in sport, evaluate and report the brand exposure and media rating in real time.

• (2 years) Sponsorship, Rights-holder/Brand Management, Sponsorship Leveraging, Player/Sports Talent Management, New Business Development, Fan Engagement, In-Stadia LED Solutions.
• A multi-purpose role with a new Digital/Sports Marketing/Technology start-up in Sydney engaging with sports rights-holders, stadiums and brands to develop and drive commercial solutions in sport. Techfront AUS was part of a global company delivering 2,500 events per year including Indian Premier League (IPL), Asia Cup, English Premier League, La Liga, AFL, Cricket Australia, ICC, Bundesliga to name a few. My role was to drive solutions to new rights-holders and commercialise opportunities for our new technologies to stadia, media, agencies and brands.

Highlights:

• Secured over $4m AUS in commercial business for TFA
• Successfully winning the rights to deliver in-stadia LED and commercial rights for the New Zealand Rugby, which included;
• All Blacks, Super Rugby, Mitre 10 Cup and World Rugby Sevens
• Successfully winning the rights to deliver in-stadia LED, Big Screens, Digital Site Screens, Production and commercial rights for New Zealand Cricket, which includes;
• Blackcaps, White Ferns (Domestic and Away Tours), and Super Smash.

• (2 years) Sponsorship, Rights-holder/Brand Management, Sponsorship Leveraging, Player/Sports Talent Management, Retail Solutions, New Business Development, Fan Engagement.
• Newly created, duel role within Team Epic & Stadia Media to build commercial revenue for the Dentsu Aegis Media Network through sponsorship sales by creating integrated solutions within the rights-holders environment.
• The role is to Identify, secure and grow commercial business within the Sport, Music and Lifestyle environment as well as building and managing strong client relationships both internally and externally. My focus is on delivering sponsors and brand partners to key rights-holders as well as identifying, developing strategies and negotiating sponsorships on behalf brands proactively and to brief.
• Assist with the preparation of annual business plans, budgets and forecasts.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and collaboratively
• Clients included ALF, ARIA AWARDS, Cricket Australia, FFA, Erebus Motorsport, Feld Entertainment, Sanitarium, AIG All Blacks, Sanitarium, MCG, Etihad Stadium, ARIA Awards, Tour Down Under, ARU, Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, Sydney 6ers, Sydney Thunder, Hobart Hurricanes, Bupa, Citibank.

• (2years) Sydney. Sponsorship, Commercial Rights Management, Retail/In-Store solutions, Media PR, Social Media, Digital, Events, Experiential.
• My role was to drive new business development, generate and manage the sponsorship revenue and key corporate partnerships for the Peer Group Media portfolio of 11 music festivals and events, digital and media platforms including Big Day Out, Stereosonic, Groovin’ the Moo, Woodford Folk Festival, Southbound, Festival of Sails, Eventfinder.com.au, The Music Network and Brag magazine to name a few!

Highlights:

• Secured over $5.4M sponsorship for the Peer Group Media business, including 15 new sponsorship deals.
• Doubled sponsorship revenue for Stereosonic Music Festival, YOY, establishing the property as the biggest dance music event in the country.
• Negotiated two of the biggest, multi-year sponsorship deals for Big Day Out and Stereosonic with Red Bull and V.
• Managed the key alcohol sponsorships, activations and in-store/on-pack leverage concepts for key partners.
• Managed 10 festival databases & social media fans of over 3.5million, 15-39 year olds helping to drive social media strategies and content to leverage sponsorship.
• Developed marketing and media kits to drive awareness of PGM within all media/advertising agencies.
• Independently secured 5 new commercial rights festivals and entertainment events for PGM’s portfolio.
• Developed and managed sponsorship and commercial rights sales tools for the three media and digital platforms (Eventfinder.com.au, The Music Network & The Brag Magazine).
• Significantly involved in negotiations to secure the largest broadcast media partnership with Big Day Out and MTV World Stage, creating the first Music Festival broadcast on MTV World Stage to over 550 million household worldwide.
• Negotiated a first-to-market, online TV series for Big Day Out TV across Microsoft Cloud platform.
• Managed a record 16 on-ground brand activations at Big Day Out 2013.
• Managed talent, PR and publicity campaigns utilising the music festival talent to drive awareness and exposure for the brands involvement.
• Helped negotiate talent rights on behalf of brands to use talent in social media and digital campaigns.
• Developed digital content campaigns for key Yahoo7 partnerships and clients to help drive communications across Yahoo7’s digital platforms.
• Secured major, key media partnerships for PGM to drive PR/Publicity including General Pants, Yahoo7 and MTV.

• (3 years) Promotions, Digital Content, Sponsorship/Partnership Management, Social Media, Shopper Marketing Strategy, On-Pack/In-store, PR/Publicity.
• The role was to transition, manage and grow the www.CokeUnleashed.com.au ‘Loyalty and Reward’ digital platform for Coca-Cola.
• My key responsibility included identifying, evolving and exploring opportunities within the Coca-Cola brand portfolio including Diet Coke, Coke Zero and flavours.
• The role included overarching program strategy including non-traditional and digital strategy, marketing and campaign implementation, negotiate, managing key brand partnerships and develop engaging consumer promotions and activations for CokeUnleashed and non-retained Coca-Cola brands including trade marketing and non-brand channels.
• The role also included driving brand strategy, execution, innovation and opportunities within Wunderman’s stable of clients, which included Schick, Ford, Microsoft, Dell and Vision Eye Care to name a few.
• Key focus was high level brand strategy, securing key brand partnerships, driving added value for sponsorship dollars and integration from brief to execution as well as new business developing and proactive pitching.

Highlights:

• Secured over AU$3.5m new value from partnerships for the CokeUnleashed digital platform during my time at Wunderman.
• Successful transition of the CokeUnleashed platform to new a new site.