Director, Chief Product and Experience Officer Office (London)

The Pokémon Company International, a subsidiary of The Pokémon Company in Japan, manages the property outside of Asia and is responsible for brand management, licensing, marketing, the Pokémon Trading Card Game, the animated TV series, home entertainment, and the official Pokémon website. Pokémon was launched in Japan in 1996 and today is one of the most popular children's entertainment properties in the world.

Job Summary:

The Chief Product and Experience Office (CPEO) has the following functions:

• Incubation and Product portfolio management, which works with CPEO in developing, implementing, driving and executing strategic product and experience plans, objectives and initiatives mainly for Europe and the United States.
• Integration, which connects the different department directors and work streams, and communicates to all the organization with hundreds of members under CPEO for higher quality product and experience delivery, and more continuous development.
• European office operations, which manages a team of facilities for smooth day-to-day office operations and which manages a team of liaison with the relevant offices globally mainly in the United States and Japan.

This role is responsible for running the Office as it builds the above three functions. You empower CPEO to perform their roles and responsibilities to achieve long term company success mainly in the area of product and experience management and development. In this role, you act not only as a leader of the Office but also as a sounding board for the product leadership members.

People Manager: Yes

Travel requirement: Yes, business trip to US office would be expected

What you’ll do:

• Act as a strategic advisor to Chief Product and Experience Officer, to develop and implement the incubation plans and initiatives of new products and experiences for continuous brand growth for mainly the American and European markets.
• Collaborate with product VPs, Directors and other leaders across the organizations to connect the dots for better franchise management and higher impact to the consumers with long term brand growth in mind.
• Lead and manage, under the CPEO direction, strategic resource allocation planning within the product related organizations.
• Enable the CPEO to communicate their strategies, ideas and decisions effectively across the organizations for clear alignment.
• Become a sounding board to empower and encourage the product VPs and Directors to achieve their missions.
• Identify opportunities and ideas within evolving product portfolios and address to these opportunities together with the CPEO.
• Spearhead the programs together with CPEO and People team for developing organizational capability and talent.
• Communicate with the stakeholders especially in Japan for our own ideas and initiatives.
• You will spend approximately 30% of the time managing a team of Facilities and Liaison.
• Act as a leader of the European office operations and direct the team to execute the below:

• Manage day to day office facilities operations in two offices in Europe.
• Execute the bilingual communication and liaison among global offices, especially with an office in the United States and an office in Japan.
• Create regular management reports for a US office and a Tokyo office and respond to ad hoc requests by them.

What you’ll bring:

• 3+ years experience in working as a department director or a similar role in both Japanese and English speaking environments.
• 3+ years experience in working directly with C-suite of a global corporation as Chief of Staff or a similar role.
• Experience of managing staff with different cultures and nationalities.
• Excellent business sense, logical thinking, strong with numbers, but creative mindset as well.
• Experience in both consulting and Industry is a plus.
• Strong interest in entertainment business is a must.
• Excellent communicator in Japanese and English.
• Demonstrated ability to build strong working relationships and interface effectively with all levels of the organization.
• Ability to appropriately delegate work to others to meet deadlines, goals, and objectives, develop skills and knowledge of others, and build capacity and productivity of the department.
• Near-native or fluent level of Japanese language skillset in a professional environment.
• Humble enough to enjoy supporting the success of the other directors and VPs, and resilient enough to enjoy the challenges.

Base Salary Range:

For this role, new hires generally start between £111,000.00 - 132,050.00 per year. The full range is £111,000.00 - £167,000.00 per year. This range is applicable for the labor market where the role is intended to be hired. The final base salary is directly related to the candidate’s qualifications and professional experience uniquely.

How you’ll be successful:

• Passion for Pokémon: Develops an understanding of the Pokémon brand, the impact it has on our people, culture, business, fans, and communities, and applying that knowledge and passion to everything you do.
• Challenging the Expected: Approaches challenges with curiosity and creativity, embracing the possibility of failure as an opportunity to learn something new, develop innovative ideas, solve complex problems and identify unique opportunities.
• Integrity and Respect: Demonstrates integrity and respect by leading with empathy, listening to others, seeking out different perspectives, and taking personal responsibility for decisions, actions, and results.
• Dedicated to Quality: Takes ownership to maintain and promote high standards, looks for new ways to learn and improve, and embraces a growth mindset to seek and apply feedback from others in an effort to continuously improve.
• Building Relationships: Develops and strengthens relationships, adopting a “team first” mentality and working collaboratively to solve problems and meet shared goals.
• Delighting Customers: Listens and understands the interests and needs of our customers and stakeholders, making them feel heard and important, and embracing these learnings to continue delivering a unique Pokémon experience.

What to expect:

• An employee first culture.
• Company events that celebrate the spirit of Pokémon.
• Competitive cash-based compensation programs.
• 100% employer-paid healthcare premiums for you.
• Generous paid family leave.
• Employer-paid life insurance.
• Employer-paid long and short-term income protection insurance.
• US Employees: 401k Employer Matching.
• UK/IRE/MX Employees: Pension Employer Contributions.
• Fitness reimbursement.
• LinkedIn learning.
• Comprehensive relocation package for certain roles.
• Hybrid work environment.