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The Blair Partnership is a literary and entertainment agency. We offer our clients a broad range of services including rights management, client representation and franchise management.
There are three core pillars to our business activity
- Franchise Management – which encompasses brand & franchise vision and strategy, creative strategy & direction, product development, brand management & comms for the Wizarding World franchise.
- Client Management - we bring our clients’ stories to audiences around the world. We represent our clients’ literary and entertainment rights portfolios and pursue commercial opportunities for our clients through deal making in the UK, US and internationally, partner management and backlist rights management.
- Governance & support - we provide governance and support to companies owned by J.K. Rowling (as well as other companies owned by Neil Blair). Those entitles include Pottermore, Bronte, HPTP, all owned by J.K. Rowling, as well as Snowed-In, a TV Production company owned by Neil. As part of that support, we cultivate close collaboration & strong, cohesive working practices between all the businesses.
Our vision remains to shape, nurture and grow the most imaginative and engaging brands for generations to come, working with our clients.
Our mission is to shape and connect stories to their audiences.
The Blair Partnership manages brand, franchise and creative coordination across the Wizarding World™. This includes J.K. Rowling’s print and digital publishing, stage and theatrical rights, as well as the coordination of other brand and franchise-focussed commercial activity with partners, most notably Warner Bros.
We are committed to creating an environment where our staff, clients & partners can tell their stories and achieve their potential whatever that may be. We are committed to representing a diversity of skills, experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds. We strive to make this a business that is welcoming, supportive and empowering; where all voices can be heard. It’s a work in progress and we know there is always more we can do.
Overall purpose of the job
The Royalties Assistant will report to the Client Business Manager (CBM) and take direction on specific tasks to ensure effective account management for J.K. Rowling and numerous other clients through The Blair Partnership and The Blair Partnership LLP.
We're currently undergoing a system migration and our current team are in need of support to handle with the workload of the transition and dealing with the 'business as usual' of processing royalties on a day-to-day.
Summary of duties
Responsibilities:
- Assist with logging various agreements on TBP’s contract and royalty management system, including agency agreements with clients and agreements between clients and 3rd parties (such as publishers, TV companies), along with any subsequent amendments.
- Assist in preparing and collating withholding tax exemption documents for clients, and issue to the appropriate 3rd parties (following signature and authorisation by their local tax authority).
- Prepare/issue invoices (including manual invoices), where required.
- Follow up on payments due from 3rd parties and help ensure that monies are received within contracted timescales.
- Assist with the preparation of payment advices for clients and other payees, as requested.
- Update/maintain TBP’s contract and royalty management system (to include contact details, publication/release dates for all works/formats and data – both financial and contractual).
- Obtain/process monthly sales figures received from publishers worldwide and assist with the validation of royalty statements received from 3rd parties.
- Other ad hoc tasks as required (resolving queries, preparing reports and system implementation/updates).
Person specification
Experience, technical knowledge and skills:
- Some experience of working within a Finance team in a data entry or transactional role.
- Strong numerical and data skills and interest in building knowledge of databases and reporting options
- Intermediate knowledge of Excel - confident using v lookups, filtering, pivot tables and general formulae
- Strong attention to detail and accuracy
- Some knowledge/interest in accounting rules and VAT
- Proactive learner with ability to take accountability for specified tasks
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to know when to escalate issues
- Self-starter with the ability to work autonomously when necessary, but also to take direction
- Strong time management skills and ability to adhere to strict deadlines
