Business Manager, 20th & 21st Century Art

Business Manager - 20th & 21st Century Art

The Company

Christie’s, the world’s largest Art Business, is an incredibly exciting & enriching place to start or continue your career. Whether you work within one of our Specialist Art Departments or in our more Operational focused teams we are all working together with one common goal in mind: to continue the success of this 250 year old company, steeped in history, bringing constant innovation whilst not forgetting our age old values; Passionate Expertise, Exceptional Client Service, Teamwork, Integrity, Business Judgement & Innovation. Colleagues across all departments are truly passionate about what they do and it is constantly inspiring to work with industry leaders across all segments of the business.     
 

The Role

The Business Manager is responsible for the financial, strategic and executional management of the bi-annual sale seasons, as well as working on broader department objectives. Partnering closely with international specialists on their activities in relation to the sale season, and in conjunction with the 20th and 21st Century Evening Heads of Sales, Business Director and Regional Managing Director (RMD), this role is involved in making decisions relating to the areas outlined below. 

Specific duties & responsibilities will include but are not limited to

Leadership and People Management

• Directly supervises department coordinators, copyright coordinator and at times seasonal employees.  Responsibilities include hiring, and training employees; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance and setting development plans; addressing challenges and resolving problems

• Collaborate with Heads of Sale to develop and lead onboarding and development planning for the sale teams, including assisting as needed in annual performance reviews

• Partner with Business Director to identify staffing needs, long term development plans and succession planning

• Effectively and regularly communicate to ensure organizational clarity around key dates, strategic direction, deadlines, deliverables, roles and responsibilities, and department culture/ behavior

• Manage cross-departmental sale initiatives, working as key liaison with other specialist departments and regional sale locations to identify and implement new sale opportunities

Operational Management

• Maintain relationships with critical business partners, including operations, publishing, finance, marketing and legal to ensure all functions run smoothly to support the sales

• Facilitate communication with external support teams as needed to ensure proper support, trouble shoot potential issues and define and implement process improvements

• Work closely with sale coordinator to ensure flow of information, management of deadlines and deliverables, and accuracy of all sale related information and commitments

• Resolve and escalate where necessary all operational issues

• Work closely with sale team, marketing, publishing and others to ensure key sale deadlines are met

• Partner closely with international business management team to discuss allocation of resources, property movement and strategic opportunities

Financial Management

• Review all non-standard financial deals for applicable sales and approve with RMD and Commercial Office as necessary

• Work closely with Commercial Office to prepare all commercial deals for review and approval and reconcile pipeline with Commercial and specific sale teams

• Track and manage house guarantee risk, working with the Commercial Office and sale team to offset risk

• Oversee consignment agreements to ensure they conform to the agreed terms and conditions of sale

• Work with Commercial Office, Finance and sale team to create, manage and update sale tracker

• Provide insight and information to Finance Partner to enable pipeline updates, annual budgeting, forecasting, sale P&L and other reporting

• Partner with Marketing team to assist in monitoring budget and overall marketing plan

• Work with Finance Partner to ensure that all statistics are available for each sale to en