Artist Manager/ Lead (DOE)

Summary

An Artist Manager/Lead is personable and marketing‑savvy, with strong organizational skills and ability to work across multiple teams. Reporting into the Head of Artist team, this role is in charge of Avant Arte’s important artist relationships.

Core Role Elements

• Artist Relationship Management (ARM)
  • Act as primary contact for a roster of artists, building strong, trusted relationships that maximise engagement, streamline project execution and create long‑term value for both the artists and the business.
  • Proactively manage all accounts, ensuring consistent communication and smooth delivery.
  • Build meaningful relationships with artists, their studio managers and galleries.
  • Gain a deep understanding of each artist’s ambitions – market positioning, career trajectory and long‑term legacy to shape how we collaborate effectively.
  • Drive engagement in content, promotion, collector referrals and project deliveries.
  • Become an expert in each artist’s market and practice, combining relationship skills with analysis of demand dynamics and sharing insights internally.
  • Collaborate with internal teams to advocate for artist needs while balancing business priorities.
  • Strengthen relationships through studio visits, introductions, profile‑building opportunities beyond individual projects.
• Project Management
  • End‑to‑end ownership of all projects, ensuring they meet all project milestones and deadlines and are delivered with an exceptional artist experience.
  • Strategy – working closely with Marketing, Creative Production and Sales to develop long‑term strategy and release plans for our top artists, spotting opportunities to grow an artist’s reputation, collector base and commercial value.
  • Pricing research / project scope – ensuring all project ideas are data‑based, properly researched and the most commercially viable and exciting project with the artist.
  • Contracts / agreements – working with the legal team to draw up the ‘artist agreement contract’, sharing with an artist to sign at the start of a project before going into production.
  • Artist facing budgets – sharing full breakdowns with artists, including production costs and profit scenarios, with a break‑even point clearly identified before going into production.
  • Cross‑team project management – ensuring all projects are moving at pace and being delivered to high standards, setting up project trackers, liaising with Marketing & Content for specific content requests, and ensuring Production is on track with CPs. Implementing meeting cadences with artists and galleries/studios.
  • Comms plans – developed with Marketing & Content and shared with artists before launch.
  • Sales check‑ins – check‑ins provided to the artist 4 weeks before launch, with another update 7 days before launch.
  • Artist breakdowns – ensuring these are shared with artists within 24 hours of release, and paid ASAP.
  • Post‑launch phase – preparing the artist’s editions roadmap, internal and external retrospectives and post‑launch report within 7 days of launch, developing and presenting to artists and studios.
• Pitching
  • Delivering pitches for new projects – commercially successful concept reviews, leading and coordinating pricing research, concept reviews and documentation, pulling input from Creative Production and Sales along with audience and commercial market analysis to inform effective pricing and edition sizing recommendations.
  • Winning pitches – leading pitch deck creation and meetings and pulling in input from the broader team as required.
  • Reporting, tracking and learning – reporting against pitch targets on a weekly and quarterly basis by keeping pitch trackers up to date in Airtable with status and accurate projected revenue.

Key Skills & Experience

• Operational & Project Management – Exceptionally organised with experience running efficient projects delivered to budget and on time.
• Account management – Combining relationship management (building trust, communication and long‑term loyalty) with strategic, forward‑thinking planning for an artist’s long‑term editions programme with Avant Arte.
• High quality execution at pace and with attention to detail – Demonstrated ability to use analytical thinking and data insights to evaluate performance, reading and interpreting artist market data from auction records and other sources.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration – Able to work with a wide range of stakeholders across different functions. Approachable and confident.
• Strong Communication – Comfortable simplifying complex topics, communicating clearly across audiences and writing with clarity and tone.
• Commercial Awareness – Confident working with numbers, commercial models and performance tracking to inform artist‑facing decisions.
• Problem‑Solving Mindset – Resourceful and pragmatic, able to identify challenges early and help unblock issues quickly.

Desirable Experience

• Artist Manager 5+ years of experience; Artist Lead 7+ years in a project or account management role (experience in a high‑growth or creative environment is a plus).
• Comfortable with project management and account management tooling such as AirTable or Wrike, and understanding operational ways of working.
• Background or strong interest in contemporary art, artist management or cultural production.

Benefits

• Salary range of approximately £45-75k depending on experience (we acknowledge this is a broad range but we are open to a broad range of experience).
• Generous equity allowance.
• Private Healthcare (UK).
• Enhanced pension contributions and parental leave policies.
• 25 days of holiday plus four extra company‑wide days.
• L&D budget of Euro 1000 per year per employee.
• Regular company socials.
• Art loan scheme for employees.