Associate Director, Development & Growth (Brand Licensing)

About The Position

As the Associate Director, Business Development & Strategic Growth for our Licensing Division, you’ll play a pivotal role in researching, finding, and pitching new business opportunities. You’ll use your strong research skills to identify and analyze categories and industries of interest. You’ll collaborate with our internal research teams to pull together insights on Dotdash Meredith’s category strengths, relevance, performance and business relationships. Using your exceptional marketing and critical thinking skills, you’ll craft a narrative and pitch deck showcasing our brands’ and organization’s unique value and benefit to potential partners. You enjoy forging meaningful relationships and are comfortable representing our brands and business to potential partners, including retailers, manufacturers, and DTC companies.

This role is well-suited to a proactive self-starter who is comfortable working independently and taking ownership of projects from beginning to end. With collaboration and support from teammates and colleagues along the way, you’ll work with our editorial teams, research team, creative services, and external partners to craft winning strategies and stories that help grow our successful and established licensing business.

Hybrid 3x a week- New York

In-office Expectations: This position is hybrid in-office, with the ability to work remotely for up to 3 days per week.

About The Team:

As the third largest licensor in the world, Dotdash Meredith has more than 15 trusted and iconic brands licensed across 20,000+ licensed products and services, available at retailers like Walmart and Dillard’s. We’re looking for an experienced team member with strong marketing and critical thinking skills to help grow our licensing business and secure long-term, authentic, and successful licensing partnerships.

30% - Conducting research for growth, pitches and supporting materials

40% - Creating pitch structure, narrative, and presentation materials/decks

10% - Identifying growth opportunities with the wider team

10% - Participating in pitches and contract negotiations

10% - Maintaining records and tracking team progress/general project management

Education:

Undergraduate degree required in marketing and/or equivalent experience; experience in licensing (retailer, manufacturer, licensor, agency, etc.) strongly preferred; media and/or brand experience a plus

Experience:

7-9 years’ experience in marketing, insights, pitch preparations, and growth strategy

Specific Knowledge, Skills, Certifications and Abilities:

• Excellent at communicating and collaborating with a wide range of teams and stakeholders
• Creative thinker with a passion for innovation and problem-solving
• Collaborative team player with the ability to build relationships and influence stakeholders at all levels of the organization
• Solid understanding of licensing (DTR, manufacturing, DTC, etc.) and a foundational understanding of media
• A passion for figuring out industry problems and pain points and their intersection with consumer needs
• A true self-starter who provides proactive ideas, understands organizational goals, and moves initiatives forward - with a proven track record of leading projects from start to finish and delivering business value
• An excellent communicator with outstanding research storytelling skills which allow you to draw out key insights; tailor compelling and engaging messages for different audiences
• Excellent creative writing and storytelling skills with an ability to execute visually impactful presentations (fluent in Powerpoint or Google Slides)
• Highly organized and experience maintaining Airtable or other project management platforms like Asana or Notion
• Experience creating visually appealing, on-brand pitch decks either from scratch or with the use of templates