We love Montreal. We live in it, eat in it, argue about it. The Main is Montreal's city magazine, founded in 2012, relaunched in 2023, and it exists because a city this good deserves one that takes it seriously. We work in both languages. We are independent.

Alongside journalism, we've published a library of over 150 guides, send a weekly newsletter, stage events throughout the year, and run The Directory — more than two thousand editorially verified venues across the city. Our readers are the cool ones in their friend group – the ones their friends ask for recommendations about whats going on, where to eat, and what to do.

The commercial side of the business has outgrown what the founding team can carry directly. We are hiring the person who owns it.

The role

You'll run sales and partnerships at The Main.

The first target market is Montreal: hospitality groups, developers, retailers, cultural institutions, festivals, and tourism bodies. Most of this market currently spends its entire budget on paid social. A good part of the job is showing them what the rest of the budget should be doing.

The second is national and agency: brand marketing teams, media and creative agencies, and the Quebec arms of national advertisers. Longer lead times, larger numbers, built around custom editorial production and category partnerships rather than placements.

Both markets run partly on relationships you already have. We are not asking you to arrive with a closed pipeline. We are asking you to arrive with people who will take your call.

What you'll sell

What a commercial partner is buying is the magazine — its voice, its judgment, and the readers who act on both. Every format below is a way of putting a client next to that.

Branded editorial produced by The Main Studio. Sponsorship of the newsletter. Annual editorial franchises built around the city's calendar, event sponsorships, product sponsorships, and more.

The argument

Every one of these conversations begins with a client already spending on paid social, and often on creators as well. Neither is the wrong buy. They are a different buy, and you will need to explain the difference in plain commercial terms — an audience that arrives on purpose rather than in a feed, a masthead that stands behind what it prints, and work that is still there in a year. Appearing beside a magazine people trust does something a bought impression can’t.





Key responsibilities

- Diagnose before you pitch. Foot traffic, launch awareness, bookings, category ownership — before reaching for a product. The rate card is a second-meeting document.
- Build and maintain a pipeline in our CRM. Every account, every conversation, every next step, with the source of the deal recorded.
- Write proposals that read like they came from us. Every proposal is a piece of writing, and it leads with what the client gets.
- Flag new sponsorship formats and packaging ideas that come out of client conversations. You are not responsible for building the product, but you are the first to hear what the market wants.
- Respond to and lead any RFP processes that come in, with robust, timely proposals.
- Own the relationship after the sale. Renewal is your responsibility. A signed deal is the beginning; year two should be larger than year one.
- Pitch and sell in either English or French where the conversation calls for it. Contracts are written in either language, and anything public-facing runs in both.
- Coordinate with The Main Studio and events teams on delivery. You sell the program and set the client expectation; you don't produce it.

Required qualifications

- Six or more years selling editorial-led media, sponsorship, or partnerships. Not programmatic.
- Bilingual, working in French and English daily.
- A working network in at least two of: hospitality and restaurant groups, real estate development, cultural institutions and festivals, consumer brands, agency-side media planners.
- A track record you can talk about in specifics — named deals, real numbers, the buyers who took your call.
- Comfortable moving between a modest local program and a major national project without treating the smaller number as beneath you.
- Literate enough that a proposal going out under our name does not need rewriting.
- Montreal-based.

Preferred qualifications

- A reader of the magazine, or someone who becomes one in the first week.




- Experience selling into agency media planners on the Quebec and national side.
- Existing relationships within Montreal's tourism, hospitality, or cultural-institution scene specifically.

The first year The first quarter is pipeline construction. We review it on meetings booked, proposals in the market, and pipeline quality — not on closed revenue alone. First close is expected by week six. Targets for the year are set with the successful candidate, and we put the numbers on the table at the first interview. They are not small. We expect a senior hire to argue for higher.

What we are not hiring A junior account executive. Someone who needs a manager, a script, or a rate card to do the talking. Someone who spends the first quarter learning the category.

Terms

Start date. Immediate, or as soon as possible.

Reporting. Full-time, reporting to the leadership team (Publisher and Head of Operations).

Location. Office-based at 7240 rue Clark #102, Montreal, with regular time in the field for client meetings, pitches, and site visits. This is not a remote or hybrid-optional role — the nature of the work requires being in the room, in Montreal and with clients.

Compensation. Base salary is calibrated to experience and track record, plus commission on collected net-new revenue you originate and on renewals of accounts you own. Established house accounts are excluded. Commission is paid quarterly on collection, not on signature.

Review cadence. Quarterly review against pipeline coverage and proposals in the market, not closed revenue alone.

Travel and expenses. Pre-approved travel and expenses on confirmed pitches.

Equity. An equity conversation is available after a qualifying period for the right candidate, typically twelve months from date of hire.

To apply

Send a short note and your CV to [email protected].

Two things in the note. Five Montreal accounts you would call in your first two weeks, and how you would open. Then, in a paragraph, how you would explain to a business already spending its full monthly budget on paid social why a share of it belongs with a publisher instead.

We will read the second one closely. No cover letters in the traditional sense — we are hiring for what you can do, not what you can write about doing.

We welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds.

📌 Director of Sales & Partnerships (Montreal)
🏢 THE MAIN
📍 Montreal