Think Beyond appoints Oliver Meade to spearhead new purposeful sponsorship proposition

Think Beyond – the leading global consultancy empowering sport entertainment and brands to be more sustainable, impactful, and valuable – today announced the appointment of Oliver Meade as its Senior Director, Commercial Partnerships.

Meade joins to spearhead Think Beyond’s mission to evolve the sponsorship landscape by delivering a new proposition to the market focused on creating partnerships that achieve greater commercial returns by embedding meaningful social change at their heart.

The newly created role reflects growing client demand for support in this area. Meade will be responsible for helping Think Beyond’s brand and rights-holder clients build strategies and identify meaningful relationships that deliver impact, value, and growth.

Oliver will oversee the management and continuous development of Think Beyond’s full suite of partnership services. For brands, this includes impact-driven sponsorship strategy, property identification, rights fee and asset negotiation, sponsorship activation, and storytelling. For rights-holders, services include purpose-based commercial strategy, partner auditing and integration, risk identification and mitigation, and impact program development.

With a career spanning client-side, agency, and rights-holder roles across Australasia and the UK, over the last decade, Meade has worked with some of the world’s most recognisable brands, including Heineken, Moët Hennessy, BMW, Nike, and Chelsea FC.

Oliver joins Think Beyond after an acclaimed tenure at Three UK, where he led the brand’s partnership with Chelsea FC since 2020, overseeing the three-year front-of-shirt deal and, most recently, making history by launching Three as Chelsea FC Women’s first-ever women’s-only principal partner.

Meade’s campaigns – including the award-winning #TalkMoreThanFootball initiative with Samaritans and An Interview 100 Years in the Making which used cutting-edge AI technology to give a voice to a women’s football trailblazer Lily Parr – have been praised for blending meaning, innovation, cultural relevance, and social progress.

“Oly’s deep cross-sector experience and his proven track record of delivering campaigns that drive commercial success, brand impact, and societal change make him an outstanding addition to our business,” said Sam Shave, Managing Partner at Think Beyond.

“We have long felt that the strongest partnerships have shared impact at their heart. We are seeing a growing demand for support in integrating our sustainability and impact work into both existing commercial partnerships and prospective conversations as rights-holders and brands recognise the mutual benefit in doing so. Oly’s appointment reinforces our commitment to leading the evolution of the sponsorship landscape – moving beyond short-term metrics towards sustained, long-term success,” added Shave.

Commenting on his new role, Meade said: “I’ve always believed that the most powerful collaborations are those that make a genuine impact – commercially and socially. Think Beyond is setting the benchmark for what purposeful partnerships should look like. This role is an opportunity to redefine what sponsorship can achieve through purpose, delivering real impact, and generating greater returns for both brands and rights-holders. I can’t wait to get started.”

Meade’s appointment strengthens Think Beyond’s senior leadership team as the organisation continues to grow its global client portfolio. Founded in 2015 as part of the Benchmark Group – a certified B Corp – Think Beyond now services more than 20 leading rights ​holders, brands, teams, and leagues, from offices in London, New York, and Lausanne.

The strategic consultancy advises the likes of the Premier League, Liverpool FC, ESPN, SailGP, Rexona, Subway, World Athletics, the International Olympic Committee, and more, on embedding sustainability as a core value, community programmes that deliver real impact, communications that inspire action, and purposeful partnerships that deliver greater returns.

Source: Think Beyond

  Agency, Appointment, Commercial Partnerships, Oliver Meade, Senior Director, Think Beyond