Head of Creative Studio - 12 Month FTC (Islington)

UMUK value e-Commerce as a foundational channel to connect artists and fans. This role is pivotal in helping to shape and deliver our eCommerce growth strategy across creative services and merchandise development and production.

The role will lead and develop our Direct To Fan Creative services team spanning creative, product development and production. This team is central to our ambition to scale the delivery of incredible apparel and merchandise products for our artists and labels.

The role would suit an assured self-starter who is adept at working autonomously. You will be a creative problem-solver with great business acumen and analytical skills, with the ability to lead multiple projects simultaneously. You will have strong program management and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work independently under time constraints to deliver results.

The successful candidate for this role will have experience in leading and developing high performing teams and manage a team of circa 10 heads including certain roles with matrixed reporting lines into frontline labels. The role will be cross functional in nature and lead across creative and production, ecommerce product and lifecycle management.

Role and Responsibilities

• You will lead a cross functional team of ca. 10 leads developing a high performance, innovation, collaborative culture.
• You will lead and coach your team of reports to help foster a client first approach rooted in creativity working with our label partners.
• You will manage and coach members of the labels Commerce CFT to deliver engaging products and the best possible customer experience on stores for our product, all in line with UMUK eCommerce best practice.
• You will hold a very high bar to the relevant eCommerce services offered by labels to their Artists and continually seek feedback to improve the service level and scope of support.
• Oversee the continued operational setup of the in-house Creative Studio team (internal / external).
• Lead the central Creative studios output overseeing the design and creative of merchandise and our production capabilities.
• You will guide, coach and lead eCommerce Product Managers embedded within our labels, helping them to realise our group eCommerce product strategy.
• You will manage all aspects of Direct to Fan creative services business, including department planning & resourcing, budgets, project management and delivery across client jobs.
• Ad hoc direction of designers, freelancers, photographers and video editors.
• The role will have core responsibilities to manage the central merchandise design budgets and output of the groups freelance design resources, ensuring spend efficiencies and continuous monitoring/reporting.
• You will collaborate with our label teams on design briefs, which will work to deliver artists' creative visual identities as it relates to merchandise & content (photo, video, and digital marketing assets) whilst presenting to labels and artist teams.
• Be the lead in all discussions around creative and product with senior label commercial and marketing teams, build relationships and manage escalations and identify campaign pitfalls and sharing learnings to inform future creative strategy.
• Manage the creative project planning process with key stakeholders, defining needs, scoping resources, and ensuring delivery of assets and developing the studio asset banks.
• Oversee and develop the creative teams planning boards and all merchandise design project management with the teams.
• Serve as escalation point for cross-functional creative merchandise process issues and report studio output and creative effectiveness to eCommerce Director / Exec audiences monthly.
• Undertake client/artist research and development gathering of assets and inspiration and be across product trends in fashion and streetwear especially in the eCommerce space.
• Work with Bravado Production to develop shared capabilities across design, merchandise product development and production.

Qualifications and experience:

• BSc or BA qualification in fashion / creative design.
• 10 years+ industry experience in fashion or music merchandising.
• A strong understanding of core eCommerce retailing best practice across merchandising, product development and merch visuals.
• 5 years + experience of managing teams, ideally with working experience of working cross-functional teams of 5 people +.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills and client facing/consulting skills.
• 5 years + experience in creative design for merchandise, working closely with creative teams to understand product development of artist merchandise.
• A commercial & analytical approach to business, adept at working and achieving budget and revenue targets.
• Experience of working in cross-functional teams to drive projects to completion.
• Ideally creative experience in apparel & creative product design in music merchandising / entertainment / or fashion eCommerce.
• Knowledge of UK online fashion landscape and an understanding of differing consumer profiles and trends.
• The ability to interpret a design brief and convert the information cohesively in merchandise designs.
• Demonstrable experience of working with merchandise production development with a sound knowledge of D2G, dye sublimation, cut and sew & screen print processes.
• Knowledge of typical merchandise product blanks and styles.
• Experience on monitoring supplier KPIs and performance.
• Deep understanding of eCommerce, specifically trends and best practices as they apply to the fan to artist relationship.
• Proficient knowledge of Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, Outlook), presentation packages (PowerPoint / Keynote) and Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) and project management tools.
• Creative flair, with confidence to share ideas and awareness and interest in a variety of fashion and Music fashion trends.
• Passion for music merchandise and a good knowledge of high street fashion and trends and how they might connect with artists with an understanding of brand differentiation across artists and music genres.
• Experience in working with traditional merchandisers from fashion retail to steer effective size ration and product buying as well as being able to review obsolescence and promotional activity to a high degree.