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UK Sales Director, Penguin Random House Children's (15-month parental leave cover)

Penguin Random House Children’s (PRHC) seeks an experienced sales strategist to form an integral part of our senior team and play a key role in both how we manage and grow our market-leading stable of children’s brands, and how we acquire, publish and sell frontlist. We’re looking for someone with a proven commercial track record and impact, who is able to build excellent relationships with our internal and external partners, and ideally with strong online experience.

This position reports to the Children’s Sales & Business Development Director, and manages the UK trade team.   

About Penguin Random House Children’s and Group Sales

Penguin Random House Children's brings together the greatest stories, brands and authors of any global children’s publisher.  From much-loved classic brands such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Spot to the best in new picture book talent in Ten Minutes to Bed, the biggest names in licensing including Peppa Pig and Hey Duggee and an enviable roster of middle-grade brand names including Wimpy Kid and Tom Fletcher and a host of bestsellers for young adults, we are here to help rediscover and create heroes for each new generation.  

The Group Sales department is responsible for the sales of Penguin Random House UK titles (in physical, e-book and audio) worldwide.  Our mission is to achieve profitable growth and be the best possible ambassadors for our books and authors.  We work with a broad array of retailers across all sectors, using data and analytics to inform our strategy. 

The Penguin Random House Children’s Sales Director is responsible for trade sales in the UK with primary responsibility for online, supermarket, the high street and sales to children’s specialist retailers.  

The Opportunity

•    Play a key role in in shaping the future of this market-leading division.
•    Take responsibility for positioning and selling PRHC titles profitably across the UK in physical, digital and audio formats.
•    Become a trusted partner within the division, working closely with the publishing, marketing & publicity teams across all aspects of the business, and challenging where appropriate.
•    Be a leading voice in the UK Sales Team by helping define and develop our key commercial relationships to aid profitable growth.
•    Work closely with the Children’s Head of International Sales and the Head of Custom & Partnership Sales to ensure everyone in the Children’s Sales team is aligned in their approach to maximising all growth opportunities in an ambitious, collaborative way.
•    Develop strong relationships with authors, agents, brand owners & licensors, customers and across the wider ecosystem.
•    Take responsibility for managing, developing, and supporting your own sales team.
•    Show great leadership by championing an inclusive team and supporting growth and development for all colleagues. 

Candidate Profile

•    Confident and persuasive communicator, who is also an excellent listener. 
•    Strategic and innovative, with a creative approach to driving sales across the full breadth of the PRHC list.
•    Proven experience of managing and developing powerful commercial relationships, ideally within a publishing / creative environment.
•    Experienced people manager, who thrives in developing their team.
•    A good depth of online knowledge and experience is preferred.
•    Proven experience of negotiation and managing retail relationships.
•    An ability to build and own an ambitious sales budget with growth potential.
•    Passionate about the opportunity to contribute to the continued success of PRHC, and ready to express clear opinions and challenge the status-quo. 

Please apply with your CV and cover letter addressed to Sarah by midnight on Thursday 16th December. We welcome early applications. 

What you can expect from us:

Salary: Competitive, dependent on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus bonus and benefits. 

Our employees are the heart of our business. We have a range of benefits to reflect our commitment to our employees, some of which are:

•    25 days paid holiday entitlement in year one (plus bank holidays), increasing a day each year up to 30 days
•    Medical cover
•    Life assurance
•    Cycle to Work scheme
•    Discounted gym membership
•    Generous pension scheme
•    Summer working hours (role dependent) 
•    Volunteering policy and charity matching
•    Employee Assistance programme
•    Mentoring programme
•    Extended gender neutral parental leave
•    60% Discount on Company books
•    Each site has trained mental health first aiders 
•    We plant a tree for every new employee to our business 

Our creativity is inspired by different perspectives, so we want our culture to be one of belonging, where everyone feels welcome and where differences are celebrated.

As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we’re part of the offer an interview scheme. This is where disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role can opt in to get to the next recruitment stage. There may be some situations where volume of applicants means we can’t take all eligible candidates to interview.

We want to make sure disabled applicants can be their best at each step of the recruitment journey. If you need adjustments during the application process, we encourage you to get in touch with us at http://PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk

Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable to for us to support your adjustment request. Find out more about our approach here: www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/applying-for-roles-with-a-disability

We partner with The Book Trade Charity, who provide financial assistance for people looking to get into the publishing industry; you can find more information and talk directly here: http://booktradeentrysupport.org/

Please note, we are not able to accept agency CVs for this role. Any CVs sent speculatively will not be eligible for a fee. 

UK Sales Director, Penguin Random House Children's (15-month parental leave cover)

Contract, Full-time
Publisher
Administration, Publishing, Sales Manager, Management, Communications, Sales, Business Development
Reference: 
UK Sales Director, Penguin Random House Children's (15-month parental leave cover)
Salary description: 
Competitive, dependent on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus bonus and benefits.

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Proven experience of managing and developing powerful commercial relationships, ideally within a publishing / creative environment