Head of Social

FLIGHTSTORY; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

FlightStory in London seeks a senior leader who treats short form as IP development, not a clip factory. You’ll design brand worlds, define formats, and own how creators, formats and platforms interact to build lasting value.

You’ll lead the commercial engine, forecast revenue, and develop repeatable formats that can be funded or licensed while embedding data into every decision.

Qualifications

• You believe short form is an IP development craft in its own right.
• You want to build brand worlds people belong to, not chase reach.
• You'd rather build the model that works ten times than the viral post that worked once.
• You back your taste and then let the data settle it.

Skills

Brand builder

Vertical video

Format instinct

Systems and blueprint thinking

Commercial ownership

Direct monetisation

Creator pipeline

Data over guesswork

Platform relationships

Talent magnet

Senior presence

Job description

Short form is where brand worlds are built. IP and media made for the feed, not cut down to fit it.

When the audience owes you nothing, you own how you earn their attention in the first second, then give people a reason to stay and then a reason to belong to something: formats they follow, creators they love, a world that rewards and recognises. The strongest of those formats stop being clips and carousels and become IP in their own right. New IP, new franchises, born in vertical rather than cut down to it.

You will also own what it earns. Short form is a monetisation engine on two fronts: indirect revenue the platforms pay on growth of organic performance, and direct revenue from formats built to be ad-funded, sold and licensed.

OUTCOMES

1. Build brand worlds, not feeds.

Reach is rented. Belonging is owned. Every show and every creator should feel like a place people choose to return to, and you decide how that place looks, sounds and behaves in vertical.

• Own the narrative identity of each brand in short form. Recognisable in three seconds, without a logo.


• Understand that a thirty-second post is a complete experience, not a trailer for something better.


• Build the recurring formats, characters and devices people follow, the difference between content people consume and worlds people belong to.


• Protect tone of voice and brand across every creator and every IP and Creator

Outcome: Distinct, ownable brand worlds. Audiences who come back on purpose.

2. Own the commercial engine.

Own the indirect vertical content monetisation

• Own the number end to end: targets, forecasting, reporting. Know every lever behind indirect revenue and work all of them.


• Build repeatable formats that can be ad-funded, sold or licensed, alongside formats built purely to drive organic revenue.


• Use performance data to drive commercial planning, further IP production, new formats and wider direct format monetisation.


• Own forecasting, contracts, pitching and onboarding across the creator pipeline and the social function.


• Make revenue a data point at ideation, not a question asked after publishing.

Outcome: Social carries a forecast and hits it,

3. Turn formats into IP.

The best short form isn't promotion for another asset. It becomes one.

• Develop new formats with the ambition that they can carry a show, a creator or a brand on their own.


• Spot the ideas with franchise economics behind them, repeatable, extendable, sellable and prototype them fast.


• Build the case with evidence: audience, retention, commercial pull. Then take it to production or to market.

Outcome: Formats born in vertical graduate into IP the business can build on.

4. Build the blueprint.

Influence without infrastructure is fragile. Short form is where we build the infrastructure first.

• Codify how a creator's short form media engine gets built: identity, format architecture, publishing model, growth mechanics, monetisation routes.


• Make it repeatable. A new creator or a new show launches onto a proven model, never a blank page.


• Sharpen it with every creator we add scale must never become sameness.

Outcome: A documented, proven blueprint. Launching a creator's social engine becomes a process, not a project.

5. Build content systems that scale.

Taste and systems win. At this volume, effort is not a strategy.

• Lead the production system end to end: content streams, briefing standards, editing workflows, review gates, publishing cadence.


• Engineer content once and work it hard. Nothing gets rebuilt from scratch.


• Hold delivery steady through launches, holidays and peak periods, on the system rather than on individual heroics.


• Embed AI and tooling across the workflow so output is never about heroics

Outcome: Volume and quality rise together, and the system holds as the roster grows.

6. Kill the guesswork.

Work on hypothesis not instinct.

• Run experimentation on a cadence: what gets tested, what gets scaled, what gets stopped.


• Use our proprietary Creator Insights and platform data to know who the audience actually is, not just how many, and feed that into creative, commercial and IP decisions.


• Build one shared performance view, with team and individual KPIs measured on the same basis across every show and creator.


• Make learning travel. What works for one brand gets applied across the slate,

Outcome: Weak ideas die fast and cheap. Wins scale across the roster. Every cycle makes the engine smarter.

7. Own the platform relationships.

Be the person the platforms call, and the person creators want to be signed to.

• Hold senior relationships across the major vertical platforms. Early access to formats, features, betas and support, ahead of the market.


• Convert those relationships into advantage: editorial support, monetisation programmes, priority placement, first read on where each platform is heading.


• Keep a live network across creators, agencies and short form production. A source of talent, formats and commercial opportunity.


• Represent FlightStory as the senior voice on social.

Outcome: We move ahead of platform change instead of reacting to it.

8. Hire A-players. Grow superstars.

Talent density is the moat. Every hire raises the bar, and everyone already here is visibly better a year from now.

• Hires that raise the bar. The only test on an offer: does this person raise the average, or only hold it?


• Build onboarding that turns new talent into A-players in weeks, not a year.


• Stretch your strongest people deliberately. Higher stakes, real ownership, before they think they're ready.


• Make progression explicit. Everyone can see what the next level demands and what they are being backed to become.


• Promote from within before hiring out. Internal promotions are proof the development works.

Outcome: The bar rises with every hire, and your best people take their next big job here rather than somewhere else.

COMPETENCIES

• Brand builder. You've built identities and formats in short form that people recognise and return to. Not posts that performed.


• High taste in vertical. You know what makes thirty seconds land and hold, and you can say why.


• Format instinct. You can tell the difference between a clip that worked and an idea that can carry a franchise.


• Systems and blueprint thinking. You build repeatable models others execute within, and you write them down so they travel.


• Commercial ownership. You've carried a revenue number in social and you know how indirect platform monetisation actually works at scale.


• Direct monetisation. You've built content that sells: ad-funded formats, sponsorship, licensing.


• Creator pipeline. You can pitch, contract and onboard creators, and forecast what a roster will deliver.


• Data over guesswork. You read platform and audience data fast, and you let evidence settle the call.


• Platform relationships. You have senior contacts across the major vertical platforms and a record of turning them into advantage.


• Talent magnet. Great people want to work for you, and they grow faster on your watch.


• Senior presence. You set direction, hold a standard and make the prioritisation call under pace.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

• Every brand is recognisable in vertical without a logo, with formats audiences follow rather than stumble across.


• Indirect revenue targets hit across FlightStory brands and the FlightSocials roster


• At least one repeatable format proven as a direct commercial asset ad-funded, sold or licensed.


• At least one format developed in short form taken forward as IP.


• Consistent month-on-month audience and engagement growth across the roster, measured on one shared basis.


• Experiments ship on a cadence, weak ideas die cheaply, and wins are applied across the slate.


• Measurable audience flow from short form into longform and owned channels, visible in reporting.


• The team ideates, creates and produces autonomously.


• Senior roles filled from within before we look outside.

YOU'LL THRIVE HERE IF

• You believe short form is an IP development craft in its own right


• You want to build brand worlds people belong to, not chase reach.


• You'd rather build the model that works ten times than the viral post that worked once.


• You back your taste and then let the data settle it.


• You see no tension between commercial thinking and creative standards.


• You are energised by pace and volume, and you build the systems that make both compound.


• You develop people deliberately, and you take real pride in it.


• You want to be in the room, in person, with a team operating at a very high standard.