Licensing Executive, Penguin Ventures

Job Description

Can you take our brands off the page and on an adventure?

Penguin Ventures Consumer Products and Experiences is looking for a Licensing Executive to join our multi award-winning team.

Sitting within Penguin Random House Children’s UK, the Ventures team manages iconic children’s brands such as The World of Peter Rabbit, The World of The Snowman, Flower Fairies and Spot, taking well-loved literary characters into the worlds of consumer prodcuts, experiences and licensing.

We're looking for someone who is highly organised, commercially curious and excited by licensing. You'll play a key role in supporting the Softlines category, building relationships with partners and helping identify new opportunities to grow our brands.

The role

This role will provide essential sales and commercial support to the Senior Manager, Softlines, helping to deliver against the annual Softlines budget and wider Penguin Ventures strategy. The successful candidate will act as the day-to-day lead contact for selected Softlines licensees, building strong relationships and ensuring partnerships run smoothly. They will also play an active role in identifying new business opportunities, supporting lead generation and approaches, and helping to secure new Softlines deals.

Key responsibilities:

Sales Support

• Provide day-to-day sales and commercial support to the Senior Manager, Softlines, helping to deliver against the annual Softlines budget.
• Maintain the Softlines deal tracker, supporting renewals, amendments and new deal submissions, as well as assisting with renewal conversations.
• Conduct market and competitor research to identify category gaps, emerging trends and prospective licensing partners.
• Track and manage Softlines forecasts, supporting the PRH budgeting process and ensuring submissions are accurate and in line with expectations.
• Collate and analyse sales data, preparing reports and insights for the team as required.
• Develop compelling presentations and sales materials to support pitches to licensees, retailers and prospective partners.
• Carry out retail visits to assess product placement, identify trends and opportunities, and report findings back to the team.
• Represent Penguin Ventures at industry events, trade shows and licensee meetings where appropriate.

Secondary sales support

• Take ownership of selected secondary Softlines partners, acting as the day-to-day commercial lead with support from the Senior Manager.
• Identify and pitch to potential partners, support deal negotiations and assist with the completion of contracts and other relevant documentations.
• Work with licensees and internal teams to support products through the creative development process.
• Support the Retail Manager in presenting relevant categories to retail buyers, ensuring they are kept up to date on category developments, new licensees and brand opportunities.

Licensee Support

• Coordinate regular sales, brand and marketing updates for licensees, ensuring partners are aware of relevant opportunities and initiatives.
• Gather sales information, product details, imagery and lifestyle photography for use in presentations, working closely with the creative team where required.
• Liaise with the Social Media Manager to support licensee inclusion across Penguin Ventures’ social media channels and newsletters.
• Assist with awards nominations and entries, including coordinating materials and drafting copy as needed.

What you’ll bring

Essential criteria:

• Relevant experience in a licensing support role and an understanding of the licensing business.
• Commercially minded with an interest in brands, licensing, retail and consumer products.
• Excellent administrative and organisational skills with the ability to prioritise your workload.
• Confident building relationships with both internal stakeholders and external partners.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Proactive and solutions focused with high attention to detail and an understanding of business and licensing processes.
• Excellent PowerPoint and presentation skills to ensure presentations are clear, well designed and communicate the key information for licensees and partners.
• Calm under pressure with a willingness to ask for help in support of your development.

Disability Confident

As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we offer interviews to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role, and opt-in on their application form. The essential criteria for this role are listed as part of the ‘What you’ll bring’ section. There may be times when the volume of applications means we cannot take all eligible candidates to interview. We encourage you to tell us about any reasonable adjustments you may need by emailing Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable with, for us to support your request.

If you would like to be considered under our Disability Confident Scheme during this recruitment process, please indicate this in your cover letter.

Application instructions

Please apply with your CV and cover letter outlining why you are the right candidate for the role by 11:59pm on Sunday 26th July

Use of AI tools

Here at Penguin, we believe in the power of authenticity and human creativity. When you apply for a position, we want to encourage you to showcase your unique voice. Throughout our recruitment process, please share your own thoughts, experiences, and skills. This helps us get a true sense of who you are and what you might bring to our team.

We celebrate creativity and diverse perspectives, so please be yourself! While we recognise AI tools can be helpful, we recommend using them thoughtfully to ensure your responses reflect you.

Salary

Circa, £32,000 dependent on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus bonus and benefits.

Hybrid working

While our offices across the UK are places to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important. For this role we expect the successful candidate to work from our London-based office a minimum of twice a week currently on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Other in office days required as well as regular visits to licensees and retailers.

Additional Information

Disclosure requirements pertaining to the collection of your personal data:

Responsible for processing the information provided in your application is the company specified in the job advertisement, with its registered office as indicated. The company processes your data for the purpose of establishing an employment relationship on the basis of Art. 6 (1) b GDPR / Section 26 (1) sentence 1 BDSG.

The retention period for your data is determined by the statutory time limits applicable in the respective country, beginning upon completion of the recruitment process. You can find these .

You can contact the company’s Data Protection Officer at the above-mentioned postal address.

Further information on data protection and your rights can be found .

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