Senior Key Account Manager (12 month FTC)

Bloomsbury Publishing is looking for a Senior Key Account Manager to join our Bloomsbury UK Children’s Sales Team on a fixed term parental leave contract.

Reporting into the Head of Children’s Sales, this role presents an exciting opportunity for an experienced sales professional to join the fast-moving and high-performing Sales Team of a top 5 UK publisher.  Bloomsbury Children’s are an award winning and market leading publisher of top authors and brands such as Harry Potter, Katherine Rundell, The Bunny Adventures, Katya Balen, Neil Gaiman, Kalynn Bayron and Tom Percival. 

The role

• Manage the Bloomsbury relationship with a selection of key UK accounts, including Waterstones and Gardners aiming to maximise sales revenue and profit whilst working towards group sales strategy and targets.
• Sell the Children’s Trade and Education lists to key accounts, via regular customer presentations, NLFs and negotiating deals to secure best possible promotional space and marketing activity for Bloomsbury titles.
• Liaise with the Publicity & Marketing team to ensure market-leading execution of shared strategic title plans in order to hit ambitious targets and maximise sales from all M&P activity by keeping retailers informed.
• Work closely with the adult sales team on ongoing retailer specific strategies, especially the Digital Sales team to ensure we consider online impact in all decisions.
• Responsibility for stock management for the Children’s Sales team. Including working closely with the Children’s Inventory Controller and the sales team to manage reprints, lead the weekly reprint meeting for sales, and attend the weekly cross-divisional reprints meeting taking responsibility for follow-up.
• Manage embargoes and controlled releases for all children’s books with the Inventory Controller.
• Responsibility for providing sales analysis, print-fix and acquisition numbers for titles and contributing to ad-hoc title task forces.
• Responsibility for feeding in market and customer feedback into the acquisitions process
• Attend Marketing meetings, and present sales updates (E.g. At the Fast Movers meeting).
• Present to the ASM team at Sales Briefings, contribute to, and produce weekly sales reports (Weekly Sales Updates, Bitesize etc.).
• Potential for line-management responsibility within the Children’s Consumer Sales team. To include, overseeing their workload, time-management and ensuring effective execution of their responsibilities, including sign off for expenditure.
• Deputising for the Head of Sales on an ad hoc basis.

Knowledge, skills and experience 

• Well-developed presentation skills
• Demonstrate excellent client relationship building and development skills
• Strong oral and written communication skills and the ability to communicate with stakeholders of different levels
• Strong negotiation skills with a clear understanding of the commercials
• Proven experience of sales, ideally in the children’s market
• Wide knowledge of the UK book market, including Education
• Preparing and writing internal reports
• Excellent organisational and time management skills
• Strong focus on attention to detail
• Advanced skills in Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Highly numerate and keen reader

Additional information

The role is a full-time, temporary maternity cover position

Salary Range:  £39,000 - £48,000

The role is based at our London office 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP on a hybrid-working pattern of 2 days office based / 3 days home based (or fully office based if preferred).  Allocated office days for this role are: Monday and Tuesday

Please apply with a CV and covering letter addressed to Human Resources (Word or PDF format only) via the ‘APPLY NOW’ button detailing how you meet the requirements outlined above for this role by 24th May 2024.

For best results, please use a desktop to apply as some mobile browsers may not fully support the application portal.

Bloomsbury reserve the right to close the role early if we exceed the required number of applications

Bloomsbury Benefits

As well as a fantastic opportunity to join a global award-winning organisation, Bloomsbury offers the following competitive benefits package:

Working Pattern

• hybrid working pattern of: 2 days office based / 3 days home based (or fully office based if preferred)

Holidays

• 25 days holiday
• 3.5 days Christmas company holiday

Other Benefits

• Two paid Personal Wellness Days
• Flexible Fridays – take Friday afternoon off by working an additional 3 hours and 30 minutes earlier in the week
• Season Ticket Loan
• Share Save Scheme
• AXA Healthcare Plan (Private Medical Insurance)
• In-house Doctor
• Eye Care Voucher Scheme

Company culture – Employee Voice Meetings, Staff Networks (Bloom (BAME), Accessibility, Mental Health, Pride, and Parents, Guardians and Carers, Multi-Faith) and 21 Mental Health First Aiders trained across the UK offices, Publishing Events and access to free Publishing Resources

For additional benefits see below

Bloomsbury is a place where anyone of any background, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender identity, age, ability, or socio-economic status can thrive, feel comfortable, and be heard and accepted. We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all sections of the community.

We are willing to make any reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process, please flag to the recruitment team if required

Applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK – Bloomsbury Publishing do not sponsor visa applications

The Company

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Bloomsbury Publishing is a leading independent publishing house, established in 1986, with authors who have won the Nobel, Pulitzer and Booker Prizes, and is the originating publisher and custodian of the Harry Potter series. Bloomsbury has offices in London, New York, New Delhi, Oxford and Sydney. Within Bloomsbury’s Academic division, it publishes under Bloomsbury, as well as under a number of prestigious and historic imprint names. Read Our Story for how it all began. 

 Bloomsbury is committed to creating a working environment that stimulates creativity and collaboration, is respectful of difference, is inclusive and ethical in its practice, and promotes well-being. We are determined to nurture and develop our employees to reach their highest potential, and we know that our success is down to the passion, commitment and hard work of our talented people. We recognise the urgent need to attract and support applicants from all backgrounds and identities to become part of the global publishing industry, allowing diverse voices to reflect and shape our culture and society.

Please read more on our Missions and Values here.

Please read our environmental policy here.