Founding Brand Manager

Ocommerce; Mumbai; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Ember Collective in Mumbai seeks a Founding Brand Manager to lead a visionary documentary-and-commerce launch. You will oversee India-based leadership of international productions, manage partnerships with artisans, and guide a lean documentary team across field filming, editing, and CRM.

You will drive the brand's storytelling with credible commercial terms, oversee budgets, pricing, and delivery promises, and coordinate with Ember leadership for global production goals.

Qualifications

• Leadership from idea through delivery in brand-building, editorial, documentary, branded content, or consumer commerce.
• Proven ability to connect storytelling with commercial outcomes and explain decisions and results.
• Experience directing multidisciplinary teams, managing budgets and schedules for complex projects.

Responsibilities

• Choose stories and objects worth backing and build the collection pipeline.
• Build artisan partnerships with research, outreach, and production planning.
• Lead the documentary team and shape briefs, schedules, and feedback across locales.
• Turn stories into demand by linking documentaries to collection pages and launches.
• Own budgets, pricing, margins, production commitments, and launch timing for collections.
• Create a lean, repeatable production pipeline across multiple launches.
• First 75–90 days: validate 4–6 collections and establish maker partnerships.

Skills

Brand-building leadership

Documentary storytelling

Editorial and visual judgment

Multidisciplinary team leadership

AI for research and workflow

English communication

Tools

CRM tools

Job description

Biz and Ops | Ember Collective In-Person | Mumbai Office Full-time

Founding Brand Manager

Documentary storytelling. Extraordinary craft. A global consumer brand built from India. Founding leadership role building Ember's 2027 documentary-and-commerce launch, with India-based leadership of international productions and selective field travel based on production needs.

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.