Group Director, Business Affairs

Responsibilities

• Team Leadership: Direct, mentor, and inspire a highly-skilled Business Affairs team within the WPP Production North American network.
• Team Building and Culture: Foster an inclusive, growth-minded, and collaborative environment. Establish clear career pathing, training programs, and performance standards to elevate the group’s capabilities.
• Staffing and Resource Allocation: Oversee group resourcing and staffing models. Partner with executive leadership to assess workload, optimize team bandwidth, and strategically assign Business Affairs resources to client accounts and production hubs.
• Scoping and Budget Planning: Lead scoping and staffing discussions for Business Affairs services, ensuring proper commercial coverage is budgeted across agency SOWs.
• Operational Standards: Define, implement, and continuously optimize standardized Business Affairs workflows, templates, and best practices.
• Escalation and Expert Problem-Solving: Act as the final group authority and escalation point for complex commercial, legal, and operational challenges in production. Lead dispute resolutions, including union claims, audits, vendor defaults, and challenging contract negotiations.
• Strategic Advisory: Provide decisive, executive-level counsel to production leadership, creative directors, and account leaders when navigating high-risk, speculative, or highly unconventional creative concepts.
• Creative Viability Collaboration: Partner with discipline leads and producers across the group to evaluate the feasibility of innovative, complex creative ideas prior to execution.
• IP Clearance and Protection: Oversee intellectual property rights management and clearances in tandem with agency legal counsel.
• High-Value Negotiations: Lead and negotiate celebrity, influencer, and over-scale talent agreements, as well as complex music and third-party licensing deals.
• Legal and Insurance Partnering: Partner closely with agency legal counsel on template updates, risk assessments, and indemnifications. Coordinate with the risk management team to evaluate high-risk production concerns.
• Production Estimating and Scoping: Participate in early-stage project discussions, providing accurate, experienced estimates for talent session fees, residuals, music licensing, and all other production-related business costs.
• Union and Industry Compliance: Advise agency teams and clients on union rules (SAG/AFTRA/AFM/ACTRA), regulations, and emerging industry trends.
• Financial and Post-Production Oversight: Partner with Producers to review AICP, AICE, animation, and music bids. Work alongside internal Finance from pre-bill and scoping through job closure and cost actualization.

Requirements

• Minimum of 15 years of experience at an advertising agency, with a significant portion spent in an Associate Director Business Affairs, Director of Business Affairs, or equivalent executive-level Business Affairs role.
• Deep knowledge of all production disciplines, including live-action, stills, print, out-of-home, digital, experiential, user-generated content, speculative executions, podcasts, and emerging technology platforms.
• Proven track record of navigating complex music licensing, stock footage, celebrity/influencer agreements, and intellectual property acquisitions.
• Comprehensive understanding of copyright, trademark, network clearance, and advertising standards/guidelines.
• Expert, up-to-date knowledge of SAG-AFTRA, AFM, and other relevant union commercial contracts.
• Outstanding ability to make independent, high-risk decisions under pressure, knowing exactly when to pull in agency legal counsel or executive stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Strategic Leader and Mentor: Passionate about building high-performing teams, mentoring talent, and designing operational structures that scale.
• Detail-Oriented and Inquisitive: A natural, analytical problem solver who enjoys diving deep into complex union rules or contract details to find creative, business-friendly solutions.
• Versatile Executive: Able to wear many hats. Seamlessly transitions from high-level organizational and staffing strategy to hands-on support for high-profile productions.
• Collaborative Connector: An exceptional communicator who builds strong relationships across Creative, Production, Account, Legal, and Finance departments to bring the creative vision to life safely.
• Resilient and Solution-Oriented: Maintains an optimistic yes, and posture. Highly adept at navigating ambiguity and figuring out smart workarounds to complex legal or production roadblocks.
• Ego-less Champion: Ready to roll up your sleeves alongside the team, fostering a supportive environment where collective success is prioritized.

Benefits

• Competitive benefits package offered by WPP Production.
• Access to diverse projects, global career opportunities, and the backing of WPP’s unmatched network.
• Opportunities to grow skills and make real impact in shaping the future of content production.
• Work in a collaborative, borderless environment where craft excellence is valued, innovation is encouraged, and AI and next-generation tools are used to amplify not replace human creativity.

Pay

• Base salary range: $125,000—$295,000 USD.

Schedule

• We operate on a hybrid working model, with teams in the office around four days a week.