Vice President, Sales & Partnerships, Universal Pictures Content Group – Maternity Contract

Company Description

NBCUniversal is one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies. We create world-class content, which we distribute across our portfolio of film, television, and streaming, and bring to life through our theme parks and consumer experiences. We own and operate leading entertainment and news brands, including NBC, NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, Telemundo, NBC Local Stations, Bravo, USA Network, and Peacock, our premium ad-supported streaming service. We produce and distribute premier filmed entertainment and programming through Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and Universal Studio Group, and have world-renowned theme parks and attractions through Universal Destinations & Experiences. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.

Our impact is rooted in improving the communities where our employees, customers, and audiences live and work. We have a rich tradition of giving back and ensuring our employees have the opportunity to serve their communities. We champion an inclusive culture and strive to attract and develop a talented workforce to create and deliver a wide range of content reflecting our world.

Comcast NBCUniversal has announced its intent to create a new publicly traded company ('Versant') comprised of most of NBCUniversal's cable television networks, including USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel along with complementary digital assets Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass, and SportsEngine. The well-capitalized company will have significant scale as a pure-play set of assets anchored by leading news, sports and entertainment content. The spin-off is expected to be completed during 2025.

Universal Pictures Content Group is part of the Universal Film Entertainment Group and is a leading, entrepreneurial and agile studio collaborating with the best talent to create a broad entertainment portfolio for audiences worldwide. Its central headquarters are in London with offices in Tokyo and LA. It offers a full service of content creation, acquisition, marketing and sales & distribution across theatrical, physical, digital (SVOD & Transactional), TV (Free & Pay) as well as consumer facing propositions. The business uniquely focuses on managing talents, partnerships, brands and titles across all rights and across their full lifecycle.

At Universal Pictures Content Group, we are aligned to our shared vision and focused on creating new opportunities to grow, improve and evolve our business. We work together as one team and support each other to achieve our best work. Our Values play a huge part in this commitment and the culture of our teams:

Our Relationships Matter, We Like Ideas, United We Succeed

Job Description

Key Responsibilities

Overall, this role is key in identifying today the partnership opportunities that will form the backbone of Content Group in the future. You will be responsible for sourcing and developing direct relationships with established and future clients for sales, presales, co-production and where appropriate commissioning opportunities, managing relationships with any sales agents appointed, for a slate of content across documentaries, family, comedy, and other genres, as well as the negotiating deals for this content with the creative community, licensors and IP owners.

• Proactively build close working relationships with potential partners who pre-buy or commission content for their respective platform and regularly update the team on their respective mandate’s.
• Lead relationship with NBCU TVD and SVOD distribution teams globally; pitching content slate for potential internal distribution as a first port of call.
• Liaising with appointed sales agents for our content.
• Liaise with the Content Strategy team on the relevant content slate when finalising pre-sales, financing partnerships, sales, co-productions to ensure alignment with internal NBCU distribution when pursuing a hybrid approach.
• Collaborate with the relevant content leads to help evaluate development projects for potential commission/pre-sale; create pitches tailored to the audiences including internal teams, sales agents, client’s in-house commissioning teams or acquisition teams, and co-distribution partners to enable greenlighting.
• Responsible for evaluating, negotiating, and closing commercial deals with the creative community, licensors and other parties when needed. Collaborating with SVP Production and VP Legal & Business Affairs.
• Lead negotiation of financing, presales, sales and co-production agreements, working closely with the legal and finance teams.
• Ensure commissioned programming meets client’s editorial and audience expectation by actively understanding their content priorities.
• Communicate/brief editorial objectives from platforms and broadcasters and work actively with the content team leads to develop a slate of projects.
• Provide financial analysis and reports, as required.

Qualifications

SKILLS / QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

• Extensive experience in distribution, sales, financing, production and/or co-production and deal negotiation.
• Established relationships within the broadcast and media industry including the major content providers such as Netflix, Amazon, and key local players.
• Established relationships with sales agents within the market and experience in operating in such financing and deal structure.
• Experience in creating compelling sales packages for high end content projects.
• Understand changing audience taste as well as sound understanding and knowledge in the industry.
• Enthusiastic about Content Group brand and interest in a wide variety of genres across film, documentaries, family, and special interest.
• Excellent salesperson with strong commercial acumen including prior experience interrogating financials.
• Competent negotiator, demonstrating strong commercial acumen and creative deal-making experience.
• Strong knowledge and experience of film and television output and development including awareness of material currently in development, on air and potential gaps in market.

ABOUT YOU

• Be able to work independently and in an entrepreneurial manner and demonstrate negotiation and client management skills.
• Dynamic & outgoing with strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to work across functions and at all levels within the organisation.
• Excellent communications skills – ability to lead constructive dialogue with sensitivity and tact.
• Ability to operate flexibly to work as a member of a team and to manage a variable workload.
• Resilience and stamina to sustain performance when under pressure from tight schedules and conflicting priorities.

• Excellent project management skills – able to prioritise, set a critical path, manage complex stakeholder networks across a large number of projects within challenging deadlines.
• Audience-centric mind-set - understands motivations and identifies and utilises market trends to influence planning.
• Demonstrates innovation in approach to distribution with track record of delivering new ideas successfully.
• Excellent influencing skills, able to confidently liaise with and secure support from senior stakeholders both external and internal.
• Confident and credible presenter, able to present to large and diverse groups.
• Ability to work independently as an ‘in-house indie’ within a ‘big studio’ environment.
• A personal passion for all types of content.

Additional Information

As part of our selection process, external candidates may be required to attend an in-person interview with an NBCUniversal employee at one of our locations prior to a hiring decision. NBCUniversal's policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require support throughout the application and/or recruitment process as a result of your disability, you have the right to request a reasonable accommodation. You can submit your request to AccessibilitySupport@nbcuni.com.