FOUNDING BRAND MANAGER

oCommerce LLC; Mumbai; On-site; INR 500,000 - 700,000; Full time

Job summary

Ember Collective, in partnership with oCommerce, seeks a documentary-and-collection leader to build a new brand storytelling operation. You will lead a lean documentary team, develop partnerships with artisans, and shape the pipeline from story to preorder-driven collections across global markets.

The role centers on India pilot and international expansion, coordinating budgets, pricing, timelines, and delivery promises, while preserving authentic storytelling and sound economics.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of leading work from idea through delivery in brand-building, editorial, documentary, or consumer commerce.
• Ability to connect storytelling with commercial outcomes and explain decisions and results.
• Experience directing multidisciplinary teams, managing budgets and schedules.
• Excellent written and spoken English and cross-cultural communication.

Responsibilities

• Lead the documentary team across field production, editing, sourcing support, and CRM.
• Build stories and objects pipelines, assess feasibility, and secure necessary permissions.
• Manage makers partnerships, commercial terms, and filming permissions with cultural context.
• Turn documentaries into demand via preorder, launch emails, and repeat purchases.
• Oversee budgets, pricing, margins, production commitments, and delivery schedules.
• Create a repeatable operation with forward story pipelines and post-launch improvements.

Skills

Brand-building

Editorial judgment

English fluency

Artisan sourcing

Job description

Role Overview

Some people watch a film about a master craftsperson and think, “What an extraordinary story.” We are looking for the person who also asks: “How do we bring this work to the right audience, give people a way to own it, and build a business that brings the maker repeat orders?” Ember Collective is building a global documentary studio attached to an ecommerce business. We will discover extraordinary craft traditions, document the people and processes behind them, and turn those stories into limited collections for customers in the United States. Not generic homeware with an artisan caption. Not a travel channel with a shop added later. A brand where the story, the object, and the relationship with its maker belong together. Your team might investigate metal mirrors in Kerala, lost-wax sculpture in India, intricate weaving in Southeast Asia, or hand-cut mosaics in Morocco. These are possibilities to validate, not a pre-booked itinerary. We intend to begin with an India pilot and expand thoughtfully as the model proves itself. Each collection: an original 15-30 minute documentary + a small selection of premium objects, initially targeting US$300-US$500. Our preferred model is preorder-first: validate samples and production capacity, tell the story, invite customers to commission the work, and then produce against real demand. See the kind of storytelling that inspires us Explore these Business Insider films for a sense of the human stories, visible skill, and attention to process that inspire the project:

• Aranmula metal mirrors, India - Still Standing: A reference for connecting an extraordinary object with the makers and inherited knowledge behind it. Watch the Business Insider film: https://www.businessinsider.com/few-families-know-the-secret-to-making-this-perfect-mirror-2022-4
• Rogan painting, India - Still Standing: A reference for making the person and the making process central to the story. Watch the Business Insider film: https://www.businessinsider.com/rogan-art-india-khatri-family-2020-12
• Moroccan zellige tiles - So Expensive: A reference for helping an audience understand the workmanship behind a premium object. Watch the Business Insider film: https://www.businessinsider.com/why-zellige-tiles-so-expensive-2022-5 These are independent editorial references, not Ember productions or an affiliation with Business Insider. We will develop our own reporting, relationships, films, and collections, and independently verify claims about a craft's history or survival. Now imagine leading the team that discovers the next story - and building the brand that lets an audience bring the maker's work into their homes. Why oCommerce oCommerce buys, builds, and operates a portfolio spanning fashion, home, gifting, pets, hospitality, and digital services. Our brands include Agent84, Skivys, Tangerine Cookies, Shrimpy Business, Blossomdale, and Ember Collective. For this role, your focus is one brand: Ember. You will help build its dedicated documentary-and-collection team while drawing on oCommerce's shared creative, technology, marketing, ecommerce, and operational expertise. You will work closely with company leadership rather than hand a strategy to someone else and move on. This is the opportunity to build a new business model within an operating company, not start alone with a presentation and no support.

Key Responsibilities

• Choose stories and objects worth backing. Build and prioritize the collection pipeline. Assess story depth, visual interest, product desirability, maker capacity, landed cost, packaging, export feasibility, and a credible customer delivery promise before committing to a shoot.
• Build trusted artisan partnerships. Lead research, outreach, sample development, production planning, and ongoing maker relationships. Agree clear commercial terms and filming permissions, respect cultural context, and distinguish authentic handmade variation from a quality failure.
• Lead the documentary team. Help assemble and direct a lean team spanning field filmmaking, editing, sourcing support, and shared email/CRM. Shape story briefs, production schedules, interview priorities, and edit feedback. Work with local producers and translators where needed. You are not expected to personally shoot and edit every film; you are accountable for giving specialists direction and making the whole production work.
• Turn attention into demand. Connect documentaries and short-form discovery to collection pages, waitlists, launch emails, preorders, and repeat purchases. Build organic and editorial demand first; use paid amplification selectively once a story and collection demonstrate traction.
• Own the commercial result and the customer promise. Manage collection budgets, pricing, contribution margins, production commitments, and launch timing. Coordinate quality, logistics, and customer updates with the relevant specialists. Success is not just views or orders - it is desirable work delivered reliably with sound economics.
• Build a repeatable operation. Batch fieldwork intelligently, maintain a forward pipeline of stories and collections, and improve the process after each launch. Protect truthful storytelling: no invented scarcity, unsupported "last artisan" claims, or fabricated maker footage. Be clear that Ember both tells the story and sells the work.
• Your opening mandate: First 75-90 days - validate four to six promising collections, establish the first maker partnerships, get the first batch of stories into production, and release the first documentary with a commercially and operationally credible preorder. After the pilot, build toward two collections per month as quality and execution become repeatable.

Qualifications & Skills

• A strong record of leading work from idea through delivery in brand-building, editorial, documentary, branded content, or consumer commerce. Typically 6+ years of relevant experience; exceptional work and real ownership matter more than a particular tenure or degree.
• Evidence that you can connect storytelling with commercial outcomes. You may come from the content side or the business side, but you must explain your decisions, personal contribution, and results - not just list impressive clients.
• Experience directing multidisciplinary teams or external creative partners, managing budgets and schedules, and delivering complex projects without relying on a large department.
• Strong editorial and visual judgment: the ability to recognize a compelling story, brief a filmmaker, critique an edit, and explain why an object will matter to a customer.
• Working fluency in consumer-business economics and execution: pricing, landed costs, margins, customer conversion, production constraints, and delivery promises. You do not need to be a customs specialist, but you need to know when specialist input is required.
• Excellent written and spoken English, clear communication across cultures and time zones, and the ability to build productive relationships with both makers and commercial teams.
• Experience with artisan sourcing, craft or design-led brands, premium home or lifestyle products, international field production, US consumer audiences, or preorder commerce is particularly relevant.
• Thoughtful use of AI for research, organization, transcription, and workflow efficiency is welcome. Factual verification and authentic documentary work remain essential.
• A documentary producer who has built revenue, a content-led brand operator with excellent taste, or a craft-business leader who can direct storytelling could each be right for this role. We are hiring for the combination of capabilities, not one previous job title.

What we're looking for

• You care about the opening scene and the shipping deadline. You can spot a remarkable object, ask a thoughtful question, challenge a weak commercial assumption, and give an editor useful feedback.
• You treat makers as business partners, not scenery. You are comfortable saying no to a beautiful story when the product, capacity, or economics are wrong.
• You can work ambitiously within a lean team, take feedback without losing conviction, and build structure where there is no established playbook.
• This is not a pure paid-media role, a social-posting job, or a travel-presenter position. The right person wants responsibility for the whole journey: discovery, story, demand, production, and delivery.

What we offer

• Authorship, not maintenance. Shape the brand's editorial point of view, collection choices, customer experience, and launch system at the beginning of this new chapter.
• A team to lead and develop. Help select and direct the filmmakers, editors, and collaborators whose work will define Ember, with access to shared specialists rather than an expectation that you perform every function yourself.
• Global work with substance. Lead stories and partnerships across countries, beginning with an India pilot. Join selected fieldwork where it materially improves the project; international production is part of the ambition, not a promise of constant travel.
• Direct involvement in business decisions. Work closely with oCommerce leadership and connect your creative decisions to real customers, maker orders, and commercial outcomes.
• Work you can point to. Build a body of original films, collections, and relationships rather than a calendar of campaigns that disappears at the end of the quarter. As Ember grows, the scope of your leadership can grow with it.
• Compensation appropriate to the scope. A package reflecting your experience and the responsibility of the role, discussed transparently at the introductory stage.

Our hiring process

• An introductory conversation. Discuss the vision, your experience, working arrangements, resources, and compensation. This is a mutual-fit conversation.
• A work and leadership discussion. Walk us through relevant work, the decisions you made, the teams you led, and the results you can substantiate.
• A short paid practical exercise. Develop a craft-to-collection concept from a supplied brief, designed for approximately two to three hours of preparation. We are assessing judgment - not requesting a free production plan or new film.
• A final leadership conversation and references. Align on the mandate, support, success measures, and next steps.