Careers at MGA Entertainment

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MGA Entertainment is one of the largest and fastest growing privately held toy and entertainment companies in the world. Headquartered in Los Angeles, and with offices globally, the company creates innovative, proprietary, and licensed consumer products and entertainment properties, including toys, games, dolls, apparel, consumer electronics, home décor, stationery, sporting goods, movies, and television series. The MGA family includes award-winning brands such as L.O.L. Surprise!™, Little Tikes®, Rainbow High™, Shadow High™, Bratz®, MGA’s Miniverse™, Fluffie Stuffiez™ , Na! Na! Na! Surprise™, Micro Games of America™, Baby born® Surprise and Zapf Creation®. For more information, please visit us at www.mgae.com or check us out at LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. 

Opportunity: The Director of Marketing & Global Brand Management, Preschool is a strong leader with a proven ability to build new businesses and find growth potential in mature businesses. The leader is a strong manager with proven ability to coach and mentor, train and develop within a fast-paced environment. This right candidate is a Marketing visionary and strategic planner, that can roll up their sleeves to dive in, reconciling grand objectives with corporate goals. This person knows how to drive brand performance, grow brand equity and market share by activating consumer insights, industry trends and innovative entrepreneurship to think differently. The right candidate will drive the Girls portfolio alongside executive leadership to build brands that surprise and delight consumers, create engaging brand experiences and support the VP and Executive team in setting the stage to deliver against our revenue goals and owning marketing activation to drive consumer demand.

Position Requirements

Education/Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree required in Business, Marketing or related discipline; MBA preferred
• 15+ years of brand management and/or marketing agency experience
• 10+ years team leadership and management. Led a team of 3 – 5+ direct reports
• Has made a recognized major contribution to the achievement of corporate objectives
• 360◦ campaigns experience required (including TV, digital, social, PR, retail)
• New product innovations and launch experience required. Brand Lifecycle experience required
• Proven Retail industry knowledge and retail math required. Mass experience required
• Kids and/or Family marketing, Toy experience or quick turn fashion experience required
• Diversified experience and proven success across big and small companies, start-up entrepreneurial required

Skills/Knowledge/Ability:

• Motivated by challenges and possesses a robust sense of curiosity. Can-do attitude. Ability to work independently (self-motivated) and complete projects within required timeframes
• Must manage multiple priorities with entrepreneurial, fast-paced action
• Able to manage up, make tough, informed decisions quickly to keep projects on track using good judgement and accountability
• Strong analytical skills a must. Experience with diagnosing and resolving complex problems. Ability to pull insights from multiple sources and synthesize into a compelling story
• Builds strong relationships and support cross- functional teams to align to the same goal. Focuses on productivity and efficiency. Avoids gossip and doesn’t engage in office politics. Values being part of the solution and encourages it in others
• Strong presentation skills, confidence and maturity. Proven ability to effectively represent brand internally and externally. Strong executive presence. Some interaction with high level executives
• Build strong teams and prioritize people investment to promote from within
• Ability to direct a business from all aspects: marketing, brand building, financial, and sales, including long term Franchise building

Must manage reasonable commuting distance to MGA Chatsworth HQ to support onsite business needs.

Authority:

• This role reports to the Global Vice President
• This role will be supported by multiple direct reports, Manager, and/or ABM(s)

Key Result Areas and Activities:

Brand Management

1. Manage teams that own a portfolio of multiple brands, high volume, brand pipeline with new launches, growth, sustain / innovate and sunset lifecycle at different stages across the portfolio
2. Drive the seasonal brand planning process; i.e., slot planning, white space opportunity analysis, product wave planning, price point analysis, NPD competitive data analysis
3. Ensure integrity of brand positioning, age target, key attributes and ensure product, packaging, marketing communication, licensing and retail deliver on insights-based alignment and flawless execution and 360 integration
4. Deliver brand message with authority through compelling storytelling; present to internal and external stakeholders on behalf of the brand, including proven ability to perform with upper management executives, and C-suite
5. Ensure global perspective to key areas of brand management and team support follow thru. Escalation to VP for key business impact issues

Consumer & Retail Marketing Activation 

1. Lead 360-marketing long range strategic plan and manage team(s) ownership for tactical triggers to drive consumer demand: TV advertising (creative development or advertising, media flighting, GRP/TRP, sponsorships), digital advertising and entertainment, YouTube, Instagram and other social channels with leadership oversight. Own upfront planning and budgeting process, with VP, including oversight to both US and INT Global plans
2. Own relationship with Entertainment and content creation team for short and long form content. 
3. Own brand management execution and strategy for PR event with PR team, external agencies, and support functions. Manage up to VP and CMO as needed
4. Strategically support Sales and Retail Marketing for key account activations and how they align to 360-consumer brand plans
5. Come with creative ideas to drive newness and innovative ways to efficiently market and encourage knowledge share and curiosity in cross functional and direct reports 

Category Management 

1. Lead category analysis and be an expert in Girls toy categories; including but not limited to: Collectibles, Plush, Fashion Dolls, Nurturing Dolls, Large Dolls, Activities & DIY, Trend, Novelty, Fashion, Pre-school
2. Manage down and up insights to leadership and team bench strength depth of knowledge on category dominance in retail, e-commerce and creative advertising activations of key competitors

P&L Management, Budget, Retail Sales & Financial Analysis

1. Maintain complete awareness of brand financials including inventory, forecasts etc. and understand implications to marketing investment, ROI and key activations. Manage up details to influence executive level decision making for P&L impact
2. Proven ability to analyze POS point of sales data with understanding of regional, store level data when necessary to determine trends and key performance indicators and business drivers. Ability to synthesize data to exec summary elevator pitch to management
3. Build financial quotas by item as part of new season development, along with insightful data points research, historical, and competitive to justify financial growth targets for Sales, Supply & Demand Planning 
4. Demonstrate decision-making abilities around investment alternatives that mitigate risk and maximize return. Identify issues and propose potential solutions. Work with leadership on total Girls portfolio management and brand contributions for larger business impact

Cross-Functional Team Leadership

1. Help identify how to overcome barriers for the team
2. Be the ultimate authority on all things brand related for cross-functional partners: Sales, Retail Marketing, Licensing, Supply & Demand, Marketing Services, Entertainment, etc.  
3. Lead cross-functional teams on assigned business or project development initiatives
4. Educate teams (Entertainment, Creative, Digital, Social etc.) on brand information and background that allow them to help create and execute programs that will drive consumer demand
5. Be a leader and a team player, solution oriented with forward momentum and a sense of urgency to pull cross-functional players together to deliver on time and on budget
6. Understand and support the strategic function of Licensing and Franchise building pillars across teams and activations 

Marketing Team Leadership 

1. Expertise in managing, coaching and mentoring direct reports 
2. Build teams through training and development; invest in bench strength and ability to promote from within 
3. Operate with best in class examples for Girls Marketing, building repeatable processes and continuous improvement 
4. Support VP team leadership, stepping up and managing up. Ability to work directly with CMO where appropriate
5. Showcase executive presence and strategic leadership ability to represent the team at the highest level, including direct interaction with Founder/CEO
6. Other duties as assigned per business needs 

 Salary:

$150,000 – $175,000 /yr