Founders Associate

About the Role

We’re looking for someone to work across the commercial and business development side of the Sidemen ecosystem, spanning brand partnerships, new business opportunities and Sidemen-owned ventures.

It’s a broad, entrepreneurial role for someone who is commercially minded, proactive and comfortable being thrown into different projects. You could be working on a major brand partnership one week, exploring a new business opportunity the next, or helping launch a completely new project.

You’ll work closely with senior leadership at Sidemen Entertainment, as well as Upside Ventures, our agency partners, production and creative teams, brands and external partners. As it's working across these different businesses, we feel a Founders Associate type profile is most appropriate for the type of experience we're looking for.

Key Responsibilities

Brand Partnerships

• Work across major brand partnerships involving the Sidemen spanning content to live events.
• Act as the internal link between Sidemen Entertainment, agents and brand partners, ensuring commercial opportunities translate into campaigns that work creatively and operationally.
• Own partnerships from the point a deal is being developed through to delivery, keeping talent, management, production, creative and partners aligned.
• Understand upcoming Sidemen content and projects and identify where relevant commercial opportunities could sit around them.

Business Development & New Ventures

• Take opportunities from an initial brief or idea through research, partner outreach, proposals, negotiation and execution.
• Support the development and launch of new Sidemen-owned businesses, products and IP.
• Build business cases, presentations and commercial proposals for new opportunities.
• Take ownership of high-priority projects, working independently to figure out what needs to happen and pushing them forward.
• Stay close to what is happening across gaming, creators, media, entertainment and consumer businesses to identify opportunities relevant to the Sidemen.

Upside Portfolio Partnerships

• Support promotional partnerships between Upside Ventures portfolio companies and the Sidemen ecosystem.
• Manage portfolio company integrations into Sidemen content in the same way as other commercial partnerships, coordinating with the relevant teams to ensure they happen successfully.
• Identify additional opportunities across Sidemen channels, events and platforms that could support portfolio companies.

Across the Role

• Manage multiple fast-moving projects simultaneously, often with limited structure or precedent.
• Build a strong internal understanding of how the Sidemen operate, including content, production, talent and commercial considerations.
• Prepare presentations, commercial analysis and recommendations for senior leadership.
• Be able to take a brief from senior leadership and independently turn it into something actionable.
• Take ownership rather than simply coordinating: identify problems, find solutions and make things happen.
• Build strong relationships across the Sidemen ecosystem and act as a connector between teams where required.

**What We’re Looking For**

• Commercially-minded with strong business judgement and entrepreneurial instinct.
• A proactive self-starter who doesn't need to wait for tasks to be handed to them.
• Comfortable taking ownership of projects with relatively little oversight.
• Excellent relationship-building and communication skills.
• Comfortable working with senior external partners and negotiating commercial opportunities.
• Highly organised and capable of managing several workstreams at once.
• Strong written communication and presentation skills.
• Able to quickly understand a brief, cut through complexity and work out what needs to happen next.
• Flexible and comfortable operating in an environment where priorities and projects can change quickly.
• Willing to get involved in the detail when required.
• Genuine interest in creators, media, entertainment, gaming, consumer businesses and startups.

We’d expect you to have some professional experience under your belt and to be comfortable operating independently. Experience in startups, media, talent management, agencies or strategy would be useful, but we care more about commercial instinct, ownership, adaptability and the ability to get things done.