Required Skills & Experience
- Bachelor’s degree.
- 8+ years of experience in Legal, Procurement, Sourcing, and/or Business Affairs.
- Strong understanding of legal concepts related to marketing contract negotiations.
- Experience with data and privacy regulations and compliance management, including CCPA and EMEA/GDPR requirements.
- Proven track record of mitigating risk through contract negotiations.
- Excellent relationship management skills and demonstrated ability to collaborate with suppliers and internal business teams.
Nice to Have Skills & Experience
- Understanding of accounting and finance practices.
- Experience partnering with Marketing teams to implement regulatory and process requirements.
- Proven ability to drive positive change and build strong stakeholder relationships.
- Experience with social networking, platform integrations, publishing platforms, broadcast, and new media.
- Understanding of union requirements, agreements, and negotiations.
Job Description
One of our technology clients is looking for a strategic, solutions-oriented Business Affairs Manager to join their team. This person will serve as a creative-first Business Affairs lead with a strong operational mindset, helping build and scale Business Affairs infrastructure and capabilities across Marketing.
The Business Affairs Manager will partner closely with Marketing, Creative, Production, Legal, Finance, Sourcing, Partnerships, Music, and Privacy teams to ensure marketing initiatives are delivered efficiently and with appropriate legal and business safeguards.
This role will guide complex projects from creative development through production, post-production, and distribution, while building the processes, tools, and capabilities needed to scale the Business Affairs function.
Key Responsibilities:
Business Affairs Strategy & Deal Management:
- Advise on Business Affairs matters related to creative development, production, post-production, distribution, and services.
- Provide legal, financial, and strategic perspectives on Marketing initiatives.
- Evaluate, structure, negotiate, and implement a variety of agreements in partnership with Legal, Finance, Sourcing, Partnerships, Music, and Privacy.
- Partner with Marketing stakeholders throughout the deal lifecycle to identify and prioritize deal points, communicate best practices, and advocate for the companys interests.
- Analyze deal opportunities and develop business strategies for marketing initiatives and production matters.
Creative, Production & Rights Clearance:
- Serve as a liaison between Creative and Marketing teams and Legal partners on matters involving production legal, privacy, copyright, trademark, music, talent, and rights clearances.
- Review creative materials and advise stakeholders on talent, copyright, intellectual property, and related clearance considerations.
- Support projects across digital production, photo shoots, animation, partnerships, and non-creative work through final delivery.
- Draft, review, structure, and negotiate agreements and deal points related to talent, including celebrity and influencer agreements.
- Support and negotiate music licensing agreements.
Risk, Compliance & Operations:
- Implement practical processes and workflows that support compliance with the company's legal and contractual obligations.
- Drive risk escalation and facilitate executive-level sign-off on risk assessments when necessary.
- Establish and champion Business Affairs best practices across the Marketing organization.
- Project manage complex, cross-functional workstreams involving multiple stakeholders.
- Identify opportunities to improve efficiency and develop creative solutions for best-in-class content production.
- Improve and scale Legal and contract-tooling workflows within Marketing.
Function & Team Leadership:
- Help define, build, educate, and scale the Business Affairs function within Marketing.
- Oversee, manage, and train the Business Affairs Contract Associate.
- Build strong cross-functional partnerships and help stakeholders navigate Business Affairs processes and requirements.
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:
- Strong understanding of legal concepts related to marketing contract negotiations.
- Ability to review creative materials and identify talent, copyright, intellectual property, privacy, and clearance considerations.
- Experience drafting, reviewing, structuring, and negotiating agreements, including talent and music licensing agreements.
- Strong analytical skills and business judgment with the ability to evaluate deals, develop strategies, and mitigate risk.
- Excellent relationship management and communication skills.
- Ability to collaborate effectively with suppliers and internal business teams.
- Proven ability to establish trusted cross-functional partnerships and drive process improvements.
- Strong project management skills with experience leading complex workstreams across multiple stakeholders.
- Ability to influence stakeholders and champion best practices across a growing organization.
