Publishing Onboarding Manager

About the role

The Publishing Onboarding Manager runs assigned publishing catalog transitions end to end, from deal handoff through steady-state administration. Executes the standard onboarding playbook across catalog ingestion, registration, and works delivery to societies, sub-publishers, and digital endpoints, and owns the identification and redirection of rights and royalty streams for assigned catalogs. Serves as day-to-day operational contact for partners and sellers, coordinating with M&A, Royalties, Business Affairs, and Legal throughout each transition. Reports to the Publishing Onboarding Director.

Responsibilities

• Owns the operational onboarding of assigned catalogs end to end, from deal handoff through absorption into steady-state administration and collection, executing the standard playbook at every stage.
• Turns deal diligence materials into a transition plan with named owners and deadlines within five business days of handoff, and keeps partners, sellers, and internal teams on schedule against it.
• Serves as the day-to-day operational contact for partners and sellers on assigned transitions, running onboarding calls, setting documentation expectations early, and escalating to the Director when partners are missing records or administrative know-how.
• Executes catalog ingestion for assigned deals: validates schedules of works, identifiers (ISRC, IPI, ISWC), and ownership splits against deal schedules, and resolves metadata gaps and chain-of-title conflicts before works are registered and delivered.
• Executes registration and works delivery for assigned catalogs to societies, sub-publishers, and digital endpoints including YouTube, including CWR submission, acknowledgement processing, and remediation of non-accepted works.
• Owns the identification, transfer, and redirection of rights and royalty streams in assigned catalogs, including US and CA PROs (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN), mechanical and digital collections, and international collection.
• Liaises with the M&A team on prior-administrator wind-down for assigned deals, which the M&A team leads, ensuring pipeline income is captured and revenue leakage prevented during handover.
• Liaises with Royalties, Business Affairs, and/or Legal on third-party payment obligations for assigned catalogs, including payee changes and account setup, ensuring these are initiated and completed on time during each transition.
• Manages several transitions at once, maintaining current per-deal status in Atlas and checking in with stakeholders on a frequent informal cadence between formal reviews.
• Delivers per-deal status, risk, registration completeness, and pipeline income capture for assigned transitions into the monthly reporting package, attributing recovered and pipeline income to the onboarding actions that produced it.
• Executes the standard playbook as written and feeds gaps, exceptions, and deal variance back to the Director, who owns the playbook and its improvement.
• Documents new procedures as SOPs at the point of first execution, and surfaces manual steps, workflow gaps, and data quality risks across assigned transitions for prioritization.
• Supports pre-closing review for deals in diligence, applying the pre-close checklist so incoming deals land onboarding-ready.
• Keeps Business Affairs, M&A, Legal, Finance, Royalties, Digital Rights, and Data & Analytics informed on assigned transitions, escalating decisions to the Director.
• Stays current on society delivery requirements, CWR versions, and identifier standards as they affect assigned catalogs.
• Supports the Director with special projects and deal-related analysis as needed.
• Other duties as assigned

Qualifications

• 4+ years in music publishing administration, with direct experience taking catalogs from acquisition or agreement through registration and delivery
• Hands-on catalog ingestion: validating works, writers, splits, and identifiers against deal schedules
• Registration and delivery to PROs, mechanical societies, sub-publishers, and digital endpoints
• Managing multiple concurrent transitions or catalog projects with external counterparties
• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent professional experience, plus 4+ years in music publishing administration including direct experience onboarding catalogs — taking works from acquisition or agreement through registration and delivery to societies and digital endpoints
• CWR delivery and acknowledgement processing, including diagnosing and remediating non-accepted works
• Working knowledge of identifier standards — ISWC, IPI, ISRC — and how they behave across systems
• US and Canadian PRO workflows (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN) plus mechanical and digital collection paths
• Chain-of-title and split-conflict resolution
• Advanced spreadsheet work on large catalog datasets; comfort with publishing admin systems
• Direct partner- and seller-facing communication, including holding counterparties to documentation deadlines

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with JV, co-publishing, or acquired catalog onboarding specifically
• International sub-publishing and foreign collection
• SoundExchange, YouTube, and other digital rights administration
• Documenting procedures as SOPs

Pay

$65,000 - $75,000 per year