Team Lead, Global Series Royalties & Legacy Entities

Job Title: Team Lead, Global Series Royalties & Legacy Entities

Location(s): Berlin or Jersey City

About Springer Nature

Springer Nature is one of the leading publishers of research in the world. We publish the largest number of journals and books and are a pioneer in open research. Through our leading brands, trusted for more than 180 years, we provide technology-enabled products, platforms and services that help researchers to uncover new ideas and share their discoveries, health professionals to stay at the forefront of medical science, and educators to advance learning. We are proud to be part of progress, working together with the communities we serve to share knowledge and bring greater understanding to the world. For more information, please visit about.springernature.com and follow @SpringerNature.

About the Role

Own and continuously improve the end-to-end royalty operations for the Book series globally and established (legacy) book entities (legacy entities are publishing entities, where growth is limited to revised editions). From timely and accurate contract processing to calculations, statements, payments, and author query resolution, being part of the global Book Royalty department. Managing royalties for book series globally and working closely with publishing.  Safeguarding controls and ensuring compliance with governmental, legal, and tax requirements. Act as a process lead or new sales models and package calculation models. In this role, you also act as deputy for the Global Royalties operations manager during peaks/absence.
 

This role will be in our Berlin or Jersey City offices on a hybrid working model.

Role Responsibilities:

Book series editors’ contracts, calculations & Statements

• Manage the End-to-end Royalty process for Book series. This includes maintaining current databases of series Editor obligations (royalty-bearing, fixed fee, non-royalty, and hybrid contracts), including tiering/escalators, deliverables, and exceptions.

• Review & process/link contracts of series editor obligations in the royalty system, release payments before due dates.

• Recommend and communicate payment policy changes based on meaningful and measurable data analysis.

• Oversee and approve 1st level payment entries for fixed fee agreements. Ensure SLA is met.

• Recommend policy / process changes.

• Ensure compliance with internal controls, regulatory requirements, and ensure the process is audit-proof.

• Partner with IT on fixes/enhancements; plan UAT and controlled releases.

• Identify and implement continuous improvement opportunities.

Legacy entity book royalty contracts, calculation & Statements

• Ensure timely contract processing, validate royalty conditions, etc.

• Run/oversee and validate royalty calculations, including recoupments.

• Oversee the creation and submission of Royalty statements.

• Ensure queries from authors and internal stakeholders are resolved.

Process lead New sales distribution models & Package calculation models

• Lead the design, governance, and evaluation of new royalty models related to new sales distribution models.

• Own package calculation models and allocation rules (e.g., title weighting, list price pro-rata, usage/consumption keys, Caps, multi-component splits).

• Define requirements, document assumptions of new royalty models, and align with Publishing, Tax, Legal, and Finance.

• Configure rules in the royalty system to automatically calculate the royalties of the new Royalty Business models, perform UAT, validate output, and sign off.

• Monitor variances between expected and actual allocations, drive root cause analyses and fixes, and communicate impact to stakeholders if abnormalities occur.

• All of the above need to be performed/executed in close conjunction with the Manager Global Royalty operations and VP Global AP & Royalties.

Compliance, tax & Controls

• Ensure compliance with VAT/Tax, withholding tax, and reporting to the local government if required.

• Prepare materials for internal/external audits. Implement and track remediation actions of any audit outcome.

• Monitor performance, drive corrective actions, report issues, and discuss potential improvements with the Manager Global Royalty Operations.

• Work closely together with Finance, Legal, the compliance team, and Tax.

Reporting, analytics

• Maintain monthly Royalty KPI’s & Dashboards.

• Support Finance with accruals, reconcile sales interfaces.

• Report on recoupment progress for advances, outstanding balances, or balances to be written off.

Leadership, Team management & Stakeholder management

• Lead any direct reports that manage all non-emerging entities. This includes: coaching, coverage planning, and performance reviews.

• Deputy for the manager of Global Royalty Operations.

• Work closely together with the Manager Global Royalty Operations on hiring employee replacements.

• Build strong relationships with Editorial/Publishing, contract management/Legal, Sales operations, AP, VMD, Tax, Finance, and IT.

Experience, Skills & Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s in accounting/finance / MBA (or equivalent).

• 5+ years of experience in a complex Royalty organization, and 2 years of Team lead experience.

• Strong knowledge of royalty accounting and core accounting principles.

• Proven contract interpretation (Royalty conditions, tiering/escalators, bundles, and exposure to usage-based royalty models.

• Hands-on with royalty solutions, such as Rights Line (Alliant), Vista Royalties, Virtusales (Biblio), Vistex. As well as a good understanding of ERP systems such as SAP, Oracle.

• SLA/KPI driven service delivery.

• Excellent in writing and verbal communication, customer service oriented.

• Process owner mindset: continues improvement mindset, end-to-end process accountability, understanding of how upstream and downstream input affects the processes, designing SOPs/controls, RACI, managing change, and measuring outcome. Think globally, standardization, and harmonisation.

• Operational: Hands-on, comfortable with allocation logic, scenario testing, UAT, customer-focused, and able to deliver under pressure.

• Analytics: Identify bottlenecks, perform root cause analysis, and fixes, confident with Excel, KPI storytelling, reconciliations, exception handling, variance analysis, and data-driven decisions.

• People management: Coaching, building, and guiding a team. Provide feedback, expectations settings, and actively discuss employee development/growth.

•  Technical Capability: Uses technical / job knowledge and experience to meet and exceed job requirements/customer expectations. Efficiently manages workload and projects within set timelines and to agreed budget, achieving set objectives. 

• Customer Focus (internal and external customers): Nurtures relationships by recognizing and delivering on internal and external customers’ needs and opinions. Helps others to understand the implications of their decisions. Develops and sustains productive internal and external customer relationships.

• Relationship Building/ Teamwork (incorporating Communication, Influencing and Trust): Builds effective relationships through positive communication that motivates and influences others. Honest and trustworthy; a valued team member, actively involved in achieving team objectives. Works cooperatively and flexibly with other members of the team.

• Problem Solving: Takes initiative to identify current and potential problems and determines the best solution. Identifies the cause of problems and key issues through investigation; identifies effective, logical, and practical solutions. 

• Personal Effectiveness (incorporating results focused, productivity, ownership, delegation): Produces outstanding results both professionally and personally by being proactive and committed. Continually focuses on achieving positive results contributing to the overall success of the business

At Springer Nature, we value the diversity of our teams and work to build an inclusive culture, where people are treated fairly and can bring their differences to work and thrive. We empower our colleagues and value their diverse perspectives as we strive to attract, nurture and develop the very best talent. Springer Nature was awarded Diversity Team of the Year at the 2022 British Diversity Awards. Find out more about our DEI work here https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/taking-responsibility/diversity-equity-inclusion 

If you have any access needs related to disability, neurodivergence or a chronic condition, please contact us so we can make all necessary accommodation.

For more information about career opportunities in Springer Nature please visit https://springernature.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/SpringerNatureCareers

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