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Director, Brand Management

Full Time Clerical Burbank, Burbank, CA, US

Salary Range: $170,000.00 To $185,000.00 Annually

Position Summary

Mad Engine Global is a leading designer, manufacturer, and distributor of licensed and branded apparel, accessories, and consumer products. The Director, Brand Go-To-Market is responsible for bringing newly signed and existing brand partnerships to market by serving as the central connector between brand partners, internal teams, and commercial stakeholders.

This role owns the end-to-end go-to-market process for assigned brands, ensuring that brand strategy is translated into commercially viable product direction, seasonal line plans, sales tools, approval workflows, launch calendars, and retailer-facing execution. The ideal candidate is highly organized, commercially minded, brand fluent, and capable of driving alignment across Sales, Design, Merchandising, Product Development, Licensing, Creative, Planning, Sourcing, E-commerce, and external brand partners.

This is not a traditional marketing-only role. It is a brand commercialization and cross-functional leadership role focused on ensuring that the brands Mad Engine signs are successfully launched, supported, sold, and scaled in the marketplace.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Brand Go-To-Market Leadership

• Lead the go-to-market process for assigned brand partnerships from initial onboarding through seasonal launch and ongoing market execution.
• Serve as the primary internal business lead for assigned brands, ensuring that all stakeholders understand the brand strategy, consumer target, market opportunity, product direction, and commercial priorities.
• Translate brand partner objectives, guidelines, and positioning into actionable direction for internal teams.
• Build and manage brand-specific go-to-market calendars, including line development milestones, approval deadlines, sales meeting dates, sample timing, retailer presentation windows, and launch requirements.
• Lead all brand marketing – go to market social strategy, retail marketing, and influencer campaigns/photoshoot strategy and execution.
• Ensure that all workstreams stay aligned to critical market dates and customer-facing milestones.

Brand Partner Management

• Act as a key day-to-day contact for assigned brand partners, building strong relationships and maintaining clear communication around priorities, timelines, product direction, approvals, and business needs.
• Partner with brand owners/licensors to understand brand strategy, seasonal priorities, consumer insights, creative direction, product guardrails, marketing expectations, and approval requirements.
• Prepare and lead brand partner meetings, recaps, follow-ups, and internal action plans.
• Proactively identify risks, misalignments, or delays and drive solutions before they impact market readiness.
• Ensure Mad Engine shows up as an organized, strategic, and commercially capable partner.
• Partner with Design, Merchandising, Product Development, Sales, and Planning to establish seasonal line direction for assigned brands.
• Help define product opportunities by channel, account, consumer segment, price point, fabrication, category, and retail strategy.
• Ensure product assortments reflect the brand’s DNA while also meeting retailer needs, margin targets, speed-to-market requirements, and commercial expectations.
• Review line plans, product concepts, graphics, samples, and presentation materials to ensure alignment with brand strategy and market opportunity.
• Partner with Sales to incorporate customer feedback and marketplace insights into seasonal product direction.
• Help identify whitespace opportunities, product extensions, category expansion, and account-specific growth strategies.

Licensing, Brand Approvals & Compliance

• Manage the approval process for assigned brands in partnership with Licensing, Design, Product Development, and external brand teams.
• Ensure all submissions are accurate, timely, complete, and aligned with brand guidelines.
• Track approval status, revisions, outstanding issues, and deadlines to maintain speed and accountability.
• Resolve approval-related challenges by facilitating clear communication between internal teams and brand partners.
• Maintain knowledge of brand standards, usage guidelines, rights, restrictions, product categories, territories, and customer-specific requirements.

Sales Calendar & Market Readiness

• Own the brand-specific sales calendar and ensure internal teams are prepared for key customer meetings, line reviews, trade shows, and market appointments.
• Partner with Sales to develop retailer-facing brand narratives, product stories, assortment strategies, pitch materials, and selling tools.
• Coordinate the creation of seasonal decks, line sheets, sample assortments, product information, brand overviews, and other sales support materials.
• Ensure Sales has the information, assets, samples, approvals, and product context needed to effectively sell the brand.
• Support major customer presentations and meetings as needed.

Cross-Functional Project Management

• Lead recurring cross-functional meetings for assigned brands, ensuring clear ownership, accountability, timing, and follow-through.
• Coordinate activity across Sales, Design, Merchandising, Product Development, Licensing, Creative, Sourcing, Planning, Operations, E-commerce, and Executive Leadership.
• Maintain organized tracking tools for key milestones, deliverables, approvals, risks, and decisions.
• Create visibility for leadership into brand status, launch readiness, opportunities, challenges, and resource needs.
• Drive internal alignment and decision-making when priorities, timelines, or commercial objectives shift.

Brand Strategy & Business Growth

• Support the development of brand strategies that connect partner objectives with Mad Engine’s commercial capabilities.
• Monitor market trends, consumer behavior, competitor activity, retail needs, and account feedback to inform brand growth plans.
• Identify opportunities to expand distribution, categories, channels, and consumer relevance for assigned brands.
• Partner with leadership and Sales to evaluate business performance and recommend actions to improve sell-in, sell-through, and long-term brand value.
• Help build scalable processes for onboarding, launching, and managing brand partnerships across the organization.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Merchandising, Fashion, Communications, or a related field.
• 6–10 years of experience in brand management, licensing, merchandising, go-to-market, product marketing, wholesale sales support, or related consumer products roles.
• Experience working with licensed brands, consumer products, apparel, accessories, retail, wholesale, or brand partnerships.
• Strong understanding of the product development and commercialization process, including line planning, approvals, sales tools, samples, and market calendars.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple brands, projects, timelines, and stakeholders in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent communication, presentation, relationship management, and follow-up skills.
• Strong commercial instincts and ability to balance brand integrity with retailer and business needs.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable driving accountability across teams.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office, especially PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working directly with licensors, brand owners, entertainment, sports, lifestyle, fashion, or character brands.
• Experience supporting major retail accounts and wholesale selling processes.
• Knowledge of licensing approval systems, brand guideline management, and seasonal submission processes.
• Experience in apparel graphics, product merchandising, or consumer product line development.
• Ability to build executive-level presentations and retailer-facing brand decks.
• Familiarity with digital asset management, PLM systems, or project management tools.