Regional President - APAC (china) - Fanatics Collectibles

Fanatics Collectibles is looking for a president for the fast-expanding Asia Pacific region. Reporting into the President of Trading Cards, the successful candidate will develop and lead the Fanatics Collectibles brand across all markets in APAC.

The ideal candidate is preferred to have the experience of building and scaling a business and team from scratch, successfully building a brand and franchise, and familiar with both Chinese and US cultures, especially with good understanding of the burgeoning social commerce/media and dynamic political and regulatory landscape in China. Broader Asia experience is a plus. This role will be based in Shanghai, China.

Key Priorities of the Role:

P&L Management:

• Full P&L responsibility for the APAC business, providing day to day leadership for a high-performing and team-oriented culture.
• Develop and manage budgets, forecasts, and financial plans for the regional markets, monitor key financial metrics and establish strategies to achieve financial goals.

Strategic Planning and Market Analysis:

• Create, lead, and oversee the overall strategy and implementation for the region, while overseeing in-market execution of localized strategies across both B2B and B2C channels for each new priority geography. Collaborate with global teams to align regional strategies with overall company goals.
• Conduct comprehensive market analysis to identify trends, opportunities, and challenges within the trading cards industry.
• Work closely with the Marketing team to develop and execute brand strategies that resonate within the target market and ensure consistent brand positioning across all channels.

Partner Development:

• Drive the acquisition of new commercial partners, working closely with the Business Development team.
• Ensure that all opportunities and obligations from partner and brand contracts are fully delivered and maximized.
• Gain strong understanding of consumer and partner needs – and develop business enhancements (e.g. tech, merchandising, operations) to deliver behind them.
• Lead regular business unit reviews of KPIs and Partner P&L, ensuring joint accountability.

Team Leadership:

• Build and lead team to design and produce unique and exclusive collectibles based on licensing rights from partners.
• Collaborate with the technology team to develop products with goals of adding capabilities that attract new customers, improve the customer experience and drive productivity (e.g. live platforms, secondary trading platforms).
• Attract and retain best-in-class talent across all functions in order to achieve business objectives.

Collector and Community Engagement:

• Develop the culture of trading card collecting across markets, with a view to both expanding the base of collectors and developing new revenue streams.
• Engage with the trading card community to understand customer needs and preferences.
• Drive collector satisfaction and loyalty through excellent service and engagement.

Government Relationship Management:

• Act as the primary point of contact for all government-related inquiries.
• Develop and advocate for policies that advance the industry's and collector's interests.

Key Candidate Competencies and Experiences

The successful candidate will demonstrate the following leadership competencies:

Shaping Strategy:

• Understand current and future players within the industry, as well as disruptive dynamics, and can articulate how these might impact strategy.
• Identify opportunities to reframe and reshape direction and priorities of own area using external and internal data/information.
• Actively challenge strategic assumptions and frameworks within own area when necessary.
• Use qualitative and quantitative information to inform strategic choices and to determine and justify their value.
• Continuously incorporate external perspective into decision-making.

Delivering Results:

• Embrace challenges and opportunities to exceed set goals; set new and stretching goals for self or team with relevant metrics, to achieve beyond what is expected.
• Exploit opportunities to exceed goals and works towards them, even under adverse circumstances.
• Take actions or use improvements to exceed existing goals.

Influencing Collaboratively:

• Actively seek or invite team members' or internal stakeholders' input in decision-making, especially those of different views, in order to establish a mutual understanding of emergent topics.
• Bring up uncomfortable issues of importance to discuss and resolve them.
• Show others how their objectives align with own; ignite an experience that is in line with their personal interest; is attuned to a range of motivations – logical, emotional, historical, organizational, etc.

Developing and Leading Teams:

• Need to be a dynamic and engaging leader who has demonstrated the ability to galvanize a team behind common goals in moments of change, fostering an environment of high engagement and accountability.
• Listen intently and encourage feedback and new ideas.
• Create a safe environment where input, debate, challenge and agility is encouraged regardless of the ultimate direction.
• Use different approaches both long-term and short-term (including visionary, democratic, directive, etc.) to engage, motivate and enhance team.

The ideal candidate must have:

• P&L leadership experience.
• Built and scaled sizeable and sustainable business and team.
• Built a brand and franchise successfully.
• Familiarity with the Chinese social media/commerce, younger community, political and regulatory landscape with good understanding of social community building.
• Consumer-facing industry experience, preferably physical products.
• Fluency in English and Chinese (Mandarin).
• Experience working in Mainland China, Asia/International is a big plus.

Experiences that are nice to have in the ideal candidate:

• Experience in government relationship management.
• Sports or related industry experience.
• Building community.
• Experience working with American companies and culture.

Personal Attributes:

• Entrepreneurial and innovative.
• Strategic thinker with strong business acumen and ability to articulate and influence.
• Strong multi-stakeholder management capability.
• Highly organized with strong agility for change.
• Collaborative, hands-on, people leader.
• Passionate collector preferred.