Director, Licensing

Since its launch in 1993 with a collection of six essential handbags, Kate Spade New York has always been colorful, bold, and optimistic. Today, it is a global lifestyle brand that designs extraordinary things for the everyday, delivering seasonal collections of handbags, ready-to-wear, jewelry, footwear, home décor, and more. Known for its rich heritage and unique brand DNA, Kate Spade New York offers a distinctive point of view and celebrates communities of women around the globe who live their perfectly imperfect lifestyles. 

Kate Spade New York is part of the Tapestry portfolio – a global house of brands committed to stretching what’s possible.

A member of the Tapestry family, we are part of a global house of brands that has unwavering optimism and is committed to being innovative and wholly inclusive. Visit Our People page to learn more about Tapestry's commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity.

Job title: Director  – Global Licensing

Department/location:  Global Licensing, 10 Hudson Yards 12th floor  

Report to: VP of Americas Wholesale, Global Licensing & Collaborations and GM Jewelry 

Licensing plays an integral role at Kate Spade New York. This will be an opportunity to help lead and manage the 15+ licensed portfolio with categories including: eyewear, fragrance, watches, tech, swim, sleepwear, tabletop/kitchen, stationery/gift, table linens/kitchen textiles, bedding/bath and lighting.

The Director, Licensing must possess core leadership competencies in order to meet goals and objectives annually as well as lead yourself, navigate through the organization and manage your licensing partners. You must have excellent organizational and prioritization skills with extreme attention to detail. Taking initiative, following through and problem-solving skills are a must. We want someone with strong business acumen and contract skills who is approachable, empathetic, fearless, accountable, creative, collaborative and customer focused.

The principal role of the Director, Licensing is to act as the day-to-day point of contact for all licensees, focusing on business strategy and results, contract management, product development, marketing and approvals with external and internal partners.

The successful individual will leverage their proficiency in brand licensing, contract negotiation, and product management to... 

Day-to-Day, Business Development and Analysis

• Manage day-to-day communications with partners. Cultivate trusted partnerships between Design, Global Merchandising, Global Marketing, Visual Merchandising and Legal to develop and implement strategies for Licensed categories to maximize sales growth and profitability, while keeping in line with the brand vision.
• Develop with manager long-range plan for division and by category.
• Continually analyze and identify opportunities to drive/grow the business in both existing and new categories.
• Interface with international division to maximize new business opportunities.
• Support and help lead Japan local licensing team.
• Research and drive business development with licensees.
• Partner with legal to amend and update legal documents and work on any contract renewals.
• Ensure clear, timely and consistent communication between all licensees partners and management.
• Assist in preparation of business reviews, presentations, market recaps and selling information.
• Develop working relationship with DTC teams; follow up on selling and request seasonal briefs.
• Share appropriate corporate communications with licensees and partners (new management hires, store openings, launches, etc).

Sales/Distribution

• Monitor monthly retail sales.
• Coordinate monthly financial reviews and quarterly business reviews with licensees.
• Research and approve new account requests as well as highlight additional distribution opportunities.

Marketing

• Key interface with corporate marketing.
• Prepare seasonal marketing plans in conjunction with partners, highlighting key opportunities, presenting to internal marketing teams and ensuring execution.
• Initiate all incoming marketing project requests with internal marketing department and follow projects through to final approval.  This includes marketing/PR needs, packaging, showrooms, POS and In-store visual/fixture needs, vendor guidelines and seasonal advertising requests.

Product Development & Merchandising

• Review and develop with licensee seasonal line plans
• Collaborate with Design on seasonal trend information and color/print standards packages prepared by in-house design lead to each of the partners.
• Conduct research on concepts, color and trends in the market to facilitate the design process with each partner.
•  Schedule and attend all seasonal development reviews from initial concepts to final approvals for each category based on development calendars. 
•  Help facilitate communication between both internal and external design leads.

Legal

• Ensure proper documentation for all licensees (e.g. renewals, amendments etc.)
• Act as business lead with Tapestry Legal on all contract discussions with licensees.
• Create term sheets for and drive negotiation process.
• Coordinating with Tapestry Legal teams and manager on legal document creation and updates.

The accomplished individual will possess...

• 7+ years of experience in fashion and/or home industries - Licensing experience required.
• People-management experience (this role has direct reports and oversees a team of 4 people)
• Self-starter who can work autonomously at times with a strong sense of initiative and critical thinking.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Well versed in business planning and analytics.
• Proficient with legal documents and negations.
• Excellent product sensibility in fashion and home categories; proven experience in driving product assortments and partnering with Design to conceive concepts that drive commercially successful collections.
• Proven ability  who can build brands based on product sensibility and style combined with an analytical and strategic mind, and a keen understanding for what makes a business profitable
• Highly collaborative and optimistic nature.
• Desire to work with a highly talented group of individuals in an environment of growth and high standards, and a willingness to work hard and have fun.
• Proficient in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Workfront, InDesign.

Our Competencies for All Employees

• Courage: Doesn’t hold back anything that needs to be said; provides current, direct, complete, and “actionable” positive and corrective feedback to others; lets people know where they stand; faces up to people problems on any person or situation (not including direct reports) quickly and directly; is not afraid to take negative action when necessary.
• Creativity: Comes up with a lot of new and unique ideas; easily makes connections among previously unrelated notions; tends to be seen as original and value-added in brainstorming settings.
• Customer Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect.
• Dealing with Ambiguity: Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the total picture; isn’t upset when things are up in the air; doesn’t have to finish things before moving on; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
• Drive for Results: Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results.
• Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably.
• Learning on the Fly: Learns quickly when facing new problems; a relentless and versatile learner; open to change; analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement; experiments and will try anything to find solutions; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence and the underlying structure of anything.

Our Competencies for All People Managers

• Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.
• Developing Direct Reports and Others: Provides challenging and stretching tasks and assignments; holds frequent development discussions; is aware of each person's career goals; constructs compelling development plans and executes them; pushes people to accept developmental moves; will take on those who need help and further development; cooperates with the developmental system in the organization; is a people builder.
• Building Effective Teams: Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale and spirit in their team; shares wins and successes; fosters open dialogue; lets people finish and be responsible for their work; defines success in terms of the whole team; creates a feeling of belonging in the team.

Kate Spade is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and we pride ourselves on hiring and developing the best people. All employment decisions (including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, transfer, training, discipline and termination) are based on the applicant's or employee's qualifications as they relate to the requirements of the position under the consideration. These decisions are made without regard to age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic characteristics, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, national origin, alienage, citizenship, disability, marital status, military status, pregnancy, or any other legally-recognized protected basis prohibited by applicable law.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Tapestry, Inc. will provide applicants and employees with reasonable accommodation for disabilities or religious beliefs. If you require reasonable accommodation to complete the application process, please contact Tapestry People Services at 1-855-566-9264 or employeerelations@tapestry.com

Visit Kate Spade at www.katespade.com.                                                                                                                                   

Work Setup: HYBRID

#LI-HYBRID #LI-MC2

BASE PAY RANGE $140,000.00 TO $160,000.00 Annually                                                                     

Here are some of the benefits that we offer: Medical insurance, Dental insurance, Vision insurance, 401 (K), Paid Paternity and Maternity leave, Commuter Benefits, Disability insurance and Tuition assistance. Please click here for a complete list of U.S Corporate Compensation & Benefits.