Vice President, Talent

UEG is an award-winning global agency that specializes in making brands famous. We create breakthrough marketing campaigns by partnering brands with the people, properties, and platforms that shape pop-culture. Our business specializes in the entertainment, sports, and lifestyle space and provides a full suite of services that include celebrity engagements, influencer programming, music-film-tv/digital-sports partnerships, communications, branded content, and experiential.    The team at UEG is a dynamic group, bringing together best-in-class expertise across entertainment, sports, and lifestyle, paired with a strong understanding of brand building and effective marketing communications. This is a fast-paced high-performance environment where we combine passion for culture with the innate desire to create industry-changing work for our clients.   We are searching for a culture-hungry individual who believes in the power of celebrity talent to drive authentic brand-building work for our clients. We don’t believe in transactional relationships and therefore need a candidate who understands the art and science of landing the right voice/s for any of the brands we oversee at UEG. This work is fast paced and demands a leader who has a strong POV of the space and is ahead of the trends.  A candidate must have relevant experience in working with globally recognized celebrity level talent, a passion for pop-culture and its infusion into the consumer brand ecosphere.  

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develop strategic approaches to brand-appropriate celebrity relationships. 
• Convey deep understanding of the value of diverse level of celebrities for diverse range of services 
• Identify, vet, and secure partnerships with celebrity talent who align with client brands and campaign goals. 
• Build and maintain strong relationships with celebrity agents and managers and navigate complex negotiations with them  
• Confidently talk clients and partners through the details of any celebrity negotiations – when they are challenging and when they are going smoothly. 
• Act as oversite of a dedicated team who are responsible for all celebrity talent relationships and campaigns for within a portfolio of brands ensuring a high quality of work output across all deliverables while adhering to deadlines and budget parameters of the full life cycle of the program (research, procurement, deal development, management of execution & measurement).  
• Provide direct input and management on marketing initiatives across diverse set of clients and industry verticals 
• Evangelize the role and impact of celebrity marketing on successful content marketing strategies. Serve as a subject matter expert proactively bringing thought leadership and trends both to the agency team and to Client partners. 
• Participation in the development of program/campaign ideas as it relates to content creative, usage or earned opportunities. 
• In partnership with social strategy team, development of brand talent partnership strategies and approach specifically around size and scale, archetype, and channel priorities. 
• Oversight of creation of talent contracts with a strong knowledge in SAG, Federal Trade Commission guidelines (FTC) and standard deals. 
• Stay up to date with the latest trends, tools, and best practices incelebrity partnerships, and talent deals 
• Partner with measurement team to ensure proper use of proprietary dashboard and database to track and measure all campaigns. 
• Ongoing business development and growth within the portfolio based on key client relationships, opportunistic pitches, ideation and overall quality/health of the business. 

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Minimum of 10+ years of experience relevant to the role and industry with strong work examples and references. 
• A deep knowledge of talent management including pricing and valuation, term development and platform performance. 
• Experience evaluating, negotiating, planning and procurement of talent partners 
• Strong understanding of social media platforms, trends, and measurement approaches. 
• Ability to manage the budgets and interdisciplinary account teams on sizable pieces of business 
• Experience managing account profitability, new business solicitation, and quality of account service and employee development within an agency setting 
• Strong, proven industry contacts and relationships with agents, reps, managers and lawyers are mandatory.  
• Superior written and verbal communications skills along with the proven ability to consistently make sound judgments and effectively motivate and manage teams. 
• Strong collaborator and mentor with the ability to bring out the best in agency talent to produce great work for clients. 
• Strong work ethic with the ability to deliver quality recommendations