UK Business Affairs Lead - Marketing & Advertising

Business Affairs Lead – Marketing & Advertising – ICONIC GLOBAL TECH BRAND

• Contract length:6 months, March – Sept. – potential to extend
• Rate:£61.54 per hour
• Location:London, short haul trips to EU as required

Role Overview
We are seeking a highly experiecned Business Affairs Leadto support a spike in global marketing activity. This role will align and scale Business Affairs best practices across EMEA in close partnership with the US lead, while serving as the primary Business Affairs contact for high-profile marketing campaigns.

You will work directly with Product Marketing Managers (PMMs), creative, production, legal, and external partners to secure talent, manage rights and licenses, ensure advertising compliance, and enable campaigns to launch smoothly across multiple markets and platforms.

Key Roles & Responsibilities
Business Affairs & Program Management

• Align and scale global Business Affairs best practices across EMEA, in partnership with the US Business Affairs lead.
• Provide programmatic oversight within marketing to ensure consistent rights management, compliance, and efficient workflows.
• Anticipate business needs, build scalable processes, and respond effectively in a fast-paced, fluid environment.

Talent, Partnerships & Rights

• Secure and advise on celebrity and non-celebrity talent for global and local campaigns.
• Lead celebrity partnership deals and complex talent negotiations.
• Secure, advise on, and manage third-party licenses across campaigns and markets (music, footage, imagery, IP).
• Oversee rights management throughout campaign lifecycles, working closely with agencies and rights holders.

Advertising, Legal & Regulatory Compliance
Serve as the primary Business Affairs contact for marketing campaigns, advising on:

• Talent
• Production structures
• Campaign tactics
• Advertising standards and legal considerations

Support advertising regulation compliance across markets, including clearance submissions and regulator engagement with:

• Clearcast
• Advertising Standards Authority
• ARPP
• IAP

Consult closely with internal legal teams on risk assessment, approvals, and compliance strategy.
Support in-house contracting where possible, rather than via agency intermediaries.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work directly with PMM teams from early concept development through execution.
• Partner with production, creative, legal, and external agencies to enable compliant, cost-effective, and timely delivery.
• Act as a trusted advisor to stakeholders across EMEA and globally.

Qualifications & Experience
Required

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience.
• 10+ years’ experience in Business Affairs within advertising, marketing production, or media, handling complex talent, rights, legal, and production negotiations in a high-volume environment.
• Broad, current knowledge of UK and international production, licensing, and legal issues across all media platforms (TV, digital, social, tech).
• Experience working agency-side, production-studio-side, and/or client-side marketing production.
• Strong understanding of copyright, trademark, licensing, and advertising law, particularly for digital, social, and technology-driven campaigns.
• Deep working knowledge of Equity and European advertising standards and guidelines, with the ability to forecast and project global production costs accurately.

Preferred / Nice to Have

• Legal training or formal legal experience (a plus, but not required).
• Experience contracting in-house for a global brand rather than exclusively via agencies.
• Proven ability to manage high-profile celebrity partnerships and multi-market licensing deals.