We are looking for a Commercial Director to join the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) as a strategic senior leader, responsible for developing and delivering MCPS’ commercial strategy across mechanical rights administration, copyright licensing and royalty collection – driving sustainable revenue growth, optimising licensing frameworks and strengthening relationships across the UK and international music rights ecosystem.

About MCPS

MCPS is the UK collection society that licenses mechanical (reproduction) copyrights on behalf of over 42,000 music publisher, songwriter and composer members. We are entering a pivotal phase – modernising systems, strengthening analytics capabilities and expanding our commercial relationships – and this is an exciting moment to join as we build a more agile, member-centred, commercially driven organisation.

The Role
Reporting directly to the CEO, the Commercial Director will be the senior lead for MCPS’ commercial, licensing and market development agenda, ensuring we deliver fair, competitive and transparent licensing frameworks, maximise revenue opportunities across traditional and emerging usage types, and maintain trusted relationships with members, licensees, publishers and rights-holders.

What You’ll Do

Commercial Strategy & Revenue Growth

• Define and deliver MCPS’ commercial strategy across mechanical licensing in line with its members rights, needs and long-term organisational priorities.
• Identify and secure new market opportunities, including emerging media, digital platforms, UGC, gaming and multi‑territory licensing.
• Lead pricing, rate setting, commercial modelling, and support market consultations, ensuring fairness, defensibility and competitiveness.
• Drive long-term planning to support sustainable growth in a rapidly evolving music rights environment.
• Embed data‑driven decision‑making through dashboards, BI tools and insight reports.
• Identify, evaluate, and progress new licensing products, commercial propositions, and partnership models.
• Leverage data and market insight to quantify opportunity, risk, and member value in support of MCPS’ ambition to expand reach, visibility and impact in the industry on behalf of its members.

Licensing Leadership & Industry Partnerships

• Lead senior relationships across the licensing ecosystem, including:
  – Business partner collaboration
  – International CMOs and rights-management organisations
  – Broadcasters, gaming companies and digital platforms
  – Music publishers and independent rights-holders (e.g., direct songwriter and composer members)
• Oversee the development, negotiation, and approval of licensing schemes, reciprocal deals, and major commercial agreements.
• Represent MCPS in all major licensee negotiations, as well as appropriate industry forums and sector initiatives.

Compliance, Audit and Governance

• Oversee compliance monitoring and audit activities, ensuring adherence to licence terms, rate application and usage reporting obligations.
• Provide clear commercial and performance reporting to the CEO, Board and Executive colleagues.
• Ensure commercial decisions align with governance obligations, member mandates, and the broader public interest role of rights management organisations.

Building and Leading Licensing Function

• Establish, lead, and develop the new MCPS Licensing Team, ensuring role clarity and capability development.
• Oversee vendor‑led licensing with clear MCPS oversight and decision rights.

About You

You will demonstrate:

• Senior commercial leadership experience in music rights, music publishing, collective management, licensing, or another copyright-driven sector.
• Deep understanding of copyright law (mechanical rights in particular), licensing policy, rate setting, and UK/International royalty flows.
• A passion, mindset and capability for building long term trusted relationships, a cornerstone for our ways of working.
• Experience operating in regulated or member-governed environments, balancing commercial objectives with creator and stakeholder interests.
• Substantial experience to negotiating complex, high value, domestic and/or multi-territory commercial agreements.
• Strong financial, analytical, and data‑driven decision‑making skills.
• Confidence presenting to senior leadership and Boards, contributing to executive-level decision-making.
• Ability to build and lead multidisciplinary teams and establish new functions from the ground up.
• Experience shaping and growing high performance capabilities and teams.

Package

• Salary £135,000 – £155,000 depending on experience
• 28 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Pension contribution
• Critical Illness and Income Protection Insurance
• Death in Service benefit (after 2 years)
• Hybrid working model

Our Commitment
We are committed to building an inclusive workplace that reflects the diversity of the creators and communities we serve. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, identities and experiences. Reasonable adjustments are available throughout our recruitment process – please let us know what you need and we will work with you.

To Apply
To apply please send your CV to recruitment@mpagroup.com