Commercial Manager – Strategic Partnerships – Majid Al Futtaim

Majid Al Futtaim’s growth increasingly depends not just on running its own brands well, but on striking the right partnerships — with other retailers, brands, service providers, or platforms that can extend its reach or add value to its malls and retail ecosystem. A Commercial Manager focused on Strategic Partnerships is responsible for identifying, negotiating, and managing those relationships in ways that drive real revenue growth.

The role covers the full partnership lifecycle: scoping potential partners and commercial models, building the business case and negotiating terms, and then managing the relationship post-signature to make sure both sides are actually getting value — a signed deal that never gets properly executed is a wasted opportunity. Expect close collaboration with finance, legal, and category teams throughout, since a good commercial deal has to work operationally and financially, not just look good on paper.

This suits someone who’s commercially sharp and comfortable negotiating high-stakes agreements, but who also has the relationship management patience to nurture a partnership over months or years rather than treating the signed contract as the finish line.

Strategic partnerships can create revenue and value that neither side could build on its own — a well-structured deal brings a new brand's customers into MAF's ecosystem, or gives MAF's malls a differentiated offering competitors can't easily match — which is exactly why the quality of negotiation and ongoing management this role provides has a direct line to commercial results. A poorly negotiated or poorly managed partnership, by contrast, can quietly drain resources and management attention for years without ever delivering the value that was promised on paper. Because partnerships often touch multiple parts of the business — legal, finance, operations, marketing — the Commercial Manager's ability to keep a deal coherent across all of those functions determines whether it actually gets executed as intended rather than falling apart at the implementation stage. In a competitive Gulf retail and real estate market where several large groups are all trying to differentiate their malls and retail offerings, the strength of a company's partnership pipeline is a real strategic asset, and this role is one of the primary places that pipeline gets built and protected.

Strategic partnerships and commercial management roles build a genuinely rare combination of skills: hard negotiation ability, financial and commercial analysis, and long-term relationship management, all applied to deals that are often complex and cross-functional by nature. That combination is highly sought after for senior business development, corporate strategy, or general management roles later, since few roles offer this much exposure to how a large company actually structures and evaluates growth opportunities beyond its own core operations. Working on MAF's partnerships specifically also means visibility with senior leadership, since strategic deals of this nature typically require sign-off well above the Commercial Manager level, giving early exposure to how big commercial decisions actually get made at a large regional conglomerate. For someone building toward a corporate development, business development, or commercial leadership career, this kind of role — with real negotiation reps and cross-functional deal management experience — is an excellent accelerant, and strong performers have realistic paths into more senior commercial or corporate strategy positions within the group. It's also worth noting that people who do this kind of deal work well tend to develop unusually strong commercial instincts quickly, simply because negotiating real agreements with real consequences teaches lessons that case studies and business school simulations rarely capture.

• Several years of experience in commercial management, business development, or strategic partnerships
• Strong negotiation skills and comfort structuring commercial agreements
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, or a related field; MBA is an advantage
• Analytical ability to build and evaluate business cases for proposed partnerships
• Experience working cross-functionally with legal, finance, and category or operations teams
• Strong relationship management skills, including with senior external stakeholders
• Familiarity with the UAE or wider GCC retail, real estate, or consumer landscape is an advantage