Director, Sync Licensing Administration

Kobalt Music; Greater London; Hybride; GBP 150 000 - 190 000; Plein temps

Résumé du poste

Kobalt Music in London is seeking a Director to lead our UK Sync Licensing Administration & Operations. You will oversee end-to-end licensing admin, drive efficiency, and work with global teams to elevate our licensing operations.

Ideal candidates bring extensive experience in music publishing sync licensing, strong data and analytics skills, and a track record of implementing automation and AI to improve speed and accuracy.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in music publishing sync licensing administration.
• Proven ability to manage complex licensing matters and disputes with commercial judgment.
• Track record of identifying bottlenecks and implementing measurable process improvements.
• Strong analytical capability with experience auditing large datasets.
• Hands-on experience querying structured data using SQL and AWS Athena.

Responsabilités

• Lead the UK Sync Licensing Administration function and align with global standards.
• Oversee end-to-end admin of publishing sync agreements from deal to contract.
• Provide escalation support on licensing and contractual issues.
• Design and implement more efficient workflows and automation.
• Build dashboards and KPIs using Tableau and AWS Athena to track performance.
• Collaborate with Legal, Business Affairs, Creative, and Technology.

Connaissances

Sync licensing

Data analysis

SQL

Tableau

Automation

AI tooling

Contract lifecycle

Stakeholder management

Cross-functional collaboration

Outils

SQL

AWS Athena

Tableau

CLM

Description du poste

Director, Sync Licensing Administration & Operations

Department: Sync
Location: London, UK
Hybrid Working: 3 days in your local office
Full-time | Permanent

The Role

We’re looking for a Director, Sync Licensing Administration & Operations to oversee our UK sync licensing administration function.

You’ll be responsible for ensuring sync agreements move efficiently from deal through contracting and administration, providing expertise on complex licensing matters and maintaining the contractual and operational standards that protect Kobalt and our creators.

But this role is about more than running the process as it exists today.

We’re looking for someone with a curious, solutions-focused mindset who wants to understand how work gets done, challenge unnecessary complexity and find better ways of doing things. You’ll look for opportunities to streamline workflows, use data more effectively and introduce automation and AI where they can improve speed, accuracy and scalability.

You’ll work closely with our US team and colleagues across Creative, Business Affairs, Legal, Copyright, Product, Technology and Data to help evolve licensing administration into an increasingly data-led and technology-enabled function.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the UK Sync Licensing Administration function, working closely with US counterparts to deliver consistent global standards and ways of working.
• Oversee the end-to-end administration of publishing sync agreements, ensuring licensing activity is accurate, commercially responsive and appropriately governed.
• Provide expertise and escalation support on complex licensing and contractual matters.
• Work closely with Business Affairs and Legal on negotiation principles, contractual approaches and appropriate commercial risk.
• Get close to existing processes and workflows, identifying bottlenecks, repetitive tasks and opportunities to simplify how work gets done.
• Take the initiative in designing and implementing more efficient workflows, rather than accepting established processes as fixed.
• Explore and implement automation, AI and agentic solutions that reduce manual administration and allow the team to focus on higher-value work.
• Work confidently with large datasets, using SQL and increasingly AWS Athena to query and investigate operational data.
• Build and interpret dashboards and reporting in Tableau to understand performance, identify trends and inform decisions.
• Define meaningful operational KPIs and use data to understand licensing volumes, turnaround times, exceptions, risk and opportunities for improvement.
• Experiment with Kobalt's available technology and AI tooling to identify practical solutions to operational problems.
• Translate operational challenges into clear requirements and work with Product, Technology and Data teams where more complex solutions are required.
• Build strong partnerships across Creative, Sync, Copyright, Royalties, Legal, Finance and Technology.
• Contribute to the continued development of Kobalt's global licensing administration operating model.

What You’ll Bring

• Extensive experience within music publishing sync licensing administration, with a thorough technical understanding of publishing sync agreements, global copyright structures, multi-territory licensing practices, and European copyright nuances.
• Proven track record of independently managing complex licensing matters and contractual disputes, applying sound commercial judgement to balance revenue opportunity, operational capacity and contractual risk.
• Evidenced success in identifying operational bottlenecks and implementing measurable process improvements, rather than simply maintaining legacy administration workflows.
• Strong analytical capability with extensive, practical experience auditing and interrogating large datasets to answer operational questions and resolve discrepancies.
• Direct, hands-on experience querying structured data using SQL and query engines such as AWS Athena to drive operational reporting and analysis.
• Proven ability to build, maintain and interpret operational dashboards and business intelligence reporting, specifically using Tableau or comparable platforms.
• Demonstrable experience designing and deploying workflow automation to eliminate manual, repetitive administrative tasks and improve processing turnaround times.
• Practical experience applying generative AI and agentic tooling (such as Claude, Gemini, AWS Quick, or NotebookLM) directly within administrative, operational, or documentation workflows.
• Proven technical autonomy and confidence to experiment, prototype and deploy operational solutions independently, rather than relying solely on Product, Data or Technology teams.
• Hands-on experience working with contract lifecycle management (CLM), rights management, or legal technology platforms to administer licensing lifecycles.
• Proven track record of cross-functional stakeholder management, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across Creative, Legal & Business Affairs, Data, Product and Technology.

Key Behaviours for Success

Curiosity & Continuous Improvement: You question how things work today, explore what could work better and proactively turn ideas into practical improvements.

Problem-Solving & Initiative: You don’t simply identify problems or pass them to another team. You investigate the root cause, explore solutions and take ownership of moving improvements forward.

Technology & Data Mindset:You’re comfortable getting hands-on with data and technology and are curious about how emerging tools can improve the way the function operates.

Interview Process

• Introductory call with a member of our Recruitment Team
• Interview with the hiring manager
• Technical/data and problem-solving interview
• Final stage interview with relevant stakeholders
• Feedback at each stage

We aim to complete the full interview process from initial application to offer within three working weeks. While we do our best to meet this timeline, there may be occasional delays. If that happens, our Recruitment Team will keep you updated every step of the way.

Why Choose Us