EMEA Product Development Manager, Toys, Games & Promotions | A Global Entertainment and Media Business | 13-Month Contract | London, Hybrid, One Day A Week | £313 p/d (Inside IR35)
This is the consumer products and licensing team inside a global entertainment and media business, covering EMEA. The team is c21 people, split between hardlines and softlines. Hardlines is toys, games, food, health and beauty, promotions, and anything with a 3D or manufacturing dimension to it. This role sits on that side.
What the team actually does is take some of the best known characters and franchises in the world and make sure they land properly as physical product. They work alongside the licensees who manufacture and sell, from the first concept conversation all the way through to the thing arriving on shelf. The licensee brings the manufacturing expertise. This team brings the brand, the franchise knowledge and the creative judgement, and holds the line on getting it right.
They're hiring an EMEA Product Development Manager on a 13-month contract to cover a maternity leave across the toys, games and promotions portfolio.
Why this one is worth a look
Two reasons, and one warning.
The first is the portfolio. Roughly 70% of this role is the single biggest toy partner account in the group, a global construction toy brand, worked creatively hand in hand with the creative director and the designers across the full franchise slate. That is a rare thing to get on a 13-month contract.
The second is the altitude. You are not taking briefs and passing them on. You sit between the commercial teams, the franchise teams, legal and the licensees, and a real part of the job is deciding what does not go ahead. The hiring manager was clear that they want someone who can say no, assertively, and then solve the problem anyway.
Now the warning, and it is the most important line in this advert. This is not a design role. You will not be designing toys. The written spec leans heavily on 3D design and illustration software and that is misleading. A design background genuinely helps, because it means you can speak the same language as a licensee and art direct properly, but if you want to be hands on in Illustrator all day this will frustrate you inside a month. It is also not a marketing role.
What you'll own
Day to day management of toys, games and promotional product development across EMEA. Working directly with the creative director and the wider stakeholder group on the largest partner account, inspiring their teams and working collaboratively on their development pipeline rather than dictating to them.
Beyond that account, a spread of other partners across plush, board games, figurines and promotions, weighted towards the ones that carry heavier legal approvals and more extensive copy review.
Ownership of approval timelines and getting feedback back to partners quickly, which is the part that quietly makes or breaks the relationship.
Supporting the product development managers based in France, Germany, Spain and Italy, plus local agents, who come with queries and sense checks on toys and games every week because that specialism sits with this team rather than with them.
Trend research, and then the more interesting half of it: working with the team to translate those trends through the lens of the IP so they can be presented back to commercial teams and licensees to push better product.
One product development associate reporting into you day to day.
Who this suits
Around five years in product development on the licensor side. That is the strong preference: people who have sat where you would be sitting, at another entertainment, media or IP business, or on the licensing side of a major toy company rather than the manufacturing side. If you have four years and the rest of it is there, the client has said they will still look.
Hardlines experience is close to essential. Toys, games, board games, promotions, anything with real product construction behind it. A purely fashion or softlines background will not work here.
A design degree or design education is a nice to have rather than a requirement, and the same goes for the Adobe suite. What is not optional is the creative eye, the ability to think critically about whether a concept is right for the brand, and the interpersonal skill to hold that position with a commercial team who wants it to go ahead.
The requirement people underestimate is the last one. Every candidate says they are a strong communicator. This job asks you to be the person in the middle, telling a licensee or an internal partner no, keeping the relationship warm while you do it, and then finding the version that does work.
The setup
13 months. £313 per day, inside IR35. Start date is the first or second week of November and it is genuinely fixed, because it is built around a handover before the maternity leave starts.
London, hybrid, one day a week in the office and that day is a Wednesday. 37.5 hours with real flexibility on start and finish times. Some European travel, including a week-long trip shortly after you join, paid for by the client.