Syndication Engagement Manager

NBCUniversal is one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies. We create world-class content, which we distribute across our portfolio of film, television, and streaming, and bring to life through our theme parks and consumer experiences. We own and operate leading entertainment and news brands, including NBC, NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, Telemundo, NBC Local Stations, Bravo, USA Network, and Peacock, our premium ad-supported streaming service. We produce and distribute premier filmed entertainment and programming through Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and Universal Studio Group, and have world-renowned theme parks and attractions through Universal Destinations & Experiences. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation. Our impact is rooted in improving the communities where our employees, customers, and audiences live and work. We have a rich tradition of giving back and ensuring our employees have the opportunity to serve their communities. We champion an inclusive culture and strive to attract and develop a talented workforce to create and deliver a wide range of content reflecting our world. Comcast NBCUniversal has announced its intent to create a new publicly traded company ('Versant') comprised of most of NBCUniversal's cable television networks, including USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel along with complementary digital assets Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass, and SportsEngine. The well-capitalized company will have significant scale as a pure-play set of assets anchored by leading news, sports and entertainment content. The spin-off is expected to be completed during 2025. Our Media Group portfolio is a powerhouse collection of consumer-first brands, supported by media industry leaders, Comcast, NBCUniversal and Sky. When you join our team, you’ll work across our dynamic portfolio including Peacock, NOW, Fandango, SkyShowtime, Showmax, and TV Everywhere, powering streaming across more than 70 countries globally. And the evolution doesn’t stop there. With unequalled scale, our teams make the most out of every opportunity to collaborate and learn from one another. We’re always looking for ways to innovate faster, accelerate our growth and consistently offer the very best in consumer experience. But most of all, we’re backed by a culture of respect. We embrace authenticity and inspire people to thrive. The Syndication Engagement Manager will focus on the intake, tracking and reporting across multiple product features for our propositions. This role will be accountable for engagement activities with internal and proposition stakeholders to ensure key streaming features are understood, communicated, and executed across multiple workstreams. The Syndication Engagement Manager will drive synergies between the proposition and GSP/NBCU Product teams, managing prioritization, key touchpoints and escalations related to any workstream which the Syndication Engagement Manager is assigned. As a seasoned Engagement leader, the candidate will align business priorities with operational workflows, create and communicate clear plans, identify, and manage risks, and deliver high quality outputs on time.  It is vital for the Syndication Engagement Manager to have a vast array of soft skills related to account management, Program Management and continuous high-quality engagement. To be successful, the Syndication Engagement Manager must have a combination of a strong Product and Project Management background, experience with partner and account management, a meaningful understanding of the core business, and a balanced strategic and pragmatic approach to problem-solving. This candidate will need to display deftness in managing internal and external stakeholder needs, critical decision making, anticipating, and mitigating risks, exploring and implementing contingency plans, and providing frequent, appropriate and timely updates to our executive team on the health, status, roadmap priortization, upcoming risks and open issues for all Product initiatives.  The focus will be on the Product workstreams, and will require cross collaboration with other internal workstreams such as Data, MarTech, Experimentation, Content, Partnerships and Devices.   The successful candidate will have a track record of delivering value across the organization through relationship management that includes involvement in launching products or platforms or features in multiple international markets. As a primary responsibility they will algin closely with internal and Proposition Product stakeholders to deliver on time and to a high quality. Success will require building and maintaining strong relationships with multiple different product teams as well as the Proposition, to ensure successful Product intake, tracking and reporting throughout the Product delivery lifecycle. They will work with product and operational teams across the organization, and the Technology PMO, to ensure that the committed initiatives are well articulated, understood, managed, and implemented against available capacity and delivered to the agreed timeline.   This position will report to the Syndication Director and will work in a highly matrixed structure, managing Product teams across GSP, NBCU, the Proposition and the wider Comcast group, as well as with multiple areas of the business. This position may line manage a team in the future. It may also be responsible for directing consultants and contractors for current and future initiatives related to multiple workstreams.   Responsibilities: Partner with multiple teams across GSP, NBCU, the Proposition and Comcast in multiple geo-locations and time zones to drive products and projects focused on multiple workstream initiatives which is directly aligned to Global Streaming’s international expansion goals. Be the primary point of contact for the intake of all product initiatives and features, as well as being the escalation point for the Proposition, providing assistance and guidance throughout the product roadmap lifecycle. Keep all stakeholders accountable to drive outcomes and ensure clarity on Roles and Responsibilities Ensure regular reporting of status across all assigned initiatives, programs and projects, establishing the right controls within the team to ensure accurate status, pro-active risk management, controlling issues, robust plans and a clear roadmap of items to be rolled out.  This includes internal reporting as well as reporting to the Proposition Ensure establishment of program/project plans throughout the life-cycle of the delivery of requests from the Proposition. Ensure change is controlled, dependencies identified, and risks and issues managed. Lead on communications with the Proposition across all assigned initiatives, providing to make sure all teams are clear on goals and objectives Create governance structure based on the strategy, train the team and make sure they adhere to the governance model Obtain feedback and improve the governance structure between the Global Streaming Platform (GSP) and the Proposition across all assigned initiatives Create processes in collaboration with Subject Matter Experts and make sure all team members are trained Work with respective stakeholders to ensure we are complying with regional specific regulations Feed into the roadmap items across all assigned initiatives, including identifying parity requirements, while also enhancing the existing Global Streaming Platform in pursuit of highly scalable, effective and dynamic global OTT platform Build and maintain strong relationships with the business sponsors, understanding their goals and motivations, and shaping the roadmap to meet these business objectives. Build strong relationships with multiple third parties and understand their processes, set their direction and aid with unblocking issues. Regularly liaison with resource managers to ensure both resources and roadmap slots are secured and maintained; manage contention with other program and projects. Coach and mentor the team to ensure a consistently high performance across the portfolio. Strive for continuous improvement in our processes and procedures, identify, propose and implement changes to ensure a productive and effective organization. Ensure quality is considered throughout delivery, working with QA, trials and experimentation teams to ensure outputs are thoroughly tested and proven before deployment to customers and handed over to support. Create, update and manage a playbook for assigned initiatives, allowing all future requests and implementations to be standardized. Working with the PMO team, ensure Capacity reporting is accurate for the Proposition For Proposition requests, work closely with the Delivery Leads in the workstreams to agree release dates and share these with the Propositions. Basic Qualifications: Experience in product or project management and/or account management experience in a technology, engineering, or media company delivering complex, multi-workstream programs Strategic and pragmatic with excellent written and verbal communications skills, with the ability to tailor to all levels of an organization Strong self-starter, able to come up to speed quickly and contribute in a diverse set of technical areas, without requiring significant oversight and direction Ability to effectively present ideas and key insights in all communications with senior and executive leadership teams Strong leadership skills with the proven ability to coordinate and influence team members from multiple internal departments and external vendors, including those outside of direct purview Pro-active approach to delivery, identifying and neutralizing threats to success; positive approach to addressing conflict Calm under pressure, flexible to changing circumstances and able to make quick and rational decisions and maintain the focus of the team Strong political acumen, able to tailor style and approach to influence teams and individuals to gain the commitment and performance required to deliver on our promises. Good working understanding of media technology systems; able to have meaningful discussions with technology experts. Track record of delivery utilizing internal software development teams in an agile environment Ability to take complex technology discussions and break them down for non-technical groups Broad knowledge of program and project management methodologies and techniques Good understanding of the global media landscape, and technology’s influence Strong character exhibiting company core values: Integrity, Creativity, Teamwork, Pioneering Spirit, and Ownership Educated to Bachelor’s degree level or equivalent, background in technology or engineering a significant plus; relevant project or program management qualification Previous experience working with remote delivery teams, including third parties and international experience a considerable plus Knowledge of tools such as Jira, Confluence and Airtable Desired Experience and Qualifications: Specialist experience in OTT application delivery Knowledge of video play back and UI across multiple platforms Knowledge of OTT content, MVPDs, devices and OTT product development processes Digital/OTT experience that includes international expansion, product launches and go-to-market and product feature launches Demonstrable experience delivering technology change within digital/OTT sector including AVOD, SVOD, TVOD and PVOD MS/BS/MBA considered favorable