Warp Records – Head of/Director of Production & Physical Supply Chain
London, UK
Full-time
Company Description
Warp is a leading independent record company releasing music by ground-breaking and influential artists, including Aphex Twin, Flying Lotus, Danny Brown, Kelela, Squid, Yves Tumor, Nala Sinephro, Stereolab, and many more across our family of labels–including Warp Records, LuckyMe, and On-U Sound as well as others. With offices in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Sheffield, we’re a global team looking for people who share our passion for these artists and who think a little bit differently.
Job Description
We’re looking for a talented leader in the area of operations to oversee our Production and Physical Supply Chain function. Managing a team in London, you’ll hold a key position within our Recordings business, ensuring the successful end-to-end delivery of our global physical and digital releases across audio, video, and merchandise from product conception through to physical manufacturing and distribution.
You’ll be responsible for nurturing an ethos of quality, creativity, and sustainability across the production of our new releases and extensive catalogue. As head of this team, you’ll be responsible for ensuring that Warp employs best-in-class approaches to operational management of release timelines, workflows, capacity planning, assets/masters, repertoire metadata, costs/profitability, sustainability, logistics, team/staff development, and relationships/stakeholders.
You’ll work to deliver successful day-to-day production, manufacturing, and distribution activities as well as striving to continually improve our label’s ability to support our artists, bringing their music and releases to life.
The ideal candidate will have existing experience leading record label production or be a seasoned senior production manager with experience managing others and ambitious for a next career step. You will bring extensive expertise in record label operations and production and have a passion for continual improvement, operational excellence, best practices, innovative problem-solving, and creative thinking – and crucially, you’ll understand that, to our artists and their fans, vinyl isn’t just a piece of plastic!
We’re looking for someone who loves music and is passionate about supporting artists through efficient delivery of physical, digital, and merchandise projects that elevate new releases and continually cultivate the growth of our catalogue.
You’ll have outstanding communication skills, a talent for designing efficient workflows, a skill for building and mentoring teams, an appreciation for vinyl records as well as the next big digital thing, and a keen eye for detail and managing costs. You’ll bring strategic thinking to the day-to-day and exhibit solutions-oriented, positive leadership.
Key Responsibilities
- Oversee the end-to-end operational release management, production, and physical manufacturing/distribution function
- Develop and optimise workflows used for operational release planning, production, asset management, product set up, and workflow tracking
- Drive Warp’s ambitious sustainability and carbon impact initiatives
- Oversee detailed metadata capture for repertoire and releases
- Establish and oversee optimal operational and production lead times and deadlines,
- Oversee management of our physical catalogue inventory
- Oversee management of production and manufacturing costs
- Manage relationships with suppliers
- Lead continual improvement and provide management reporting for the production and physical supply chain area
Skills/Experience – Required
- Experience managing physical and digital release production and physical manufacturing within a record label
- Expertise in production, release planning, capacity management, project/timeline/deadlines management, workflow/process design, and operational best practices
- Thorough understanding of the vinyl manufacturing process and print production
- Experience with and passion for putting sustainability at the forefront of production and manufacturing decisions
- Experience analysing costs and negotiating prices with suppliers
- Experience managing staff and leading teams
- Expertise in repertoire metadata, label copy, and asset management
- Expertise managing, tracking, and monitoring complex projects or workstreams
- Proactive communication, stakeholder management, relationship building, and upward management skills
- Positive, solutions-oriented problem solver
Skills/Experience – Desired
- Experience managing a large active physical catalogue alongside new releases
- Experience with production and/or manufacturing of merchandise or apparel
- Skilled at using Adobe Creative Suite/design software
- Experience with masters and archiving
- Experience with systems design and roll-out
Additional information
- North London office based
- Salary dependent on experience
Applications close on April 30, 2024
We recognise the importance of diversity within our teams and are fully committed to embracing all types of talent. Additionally, we are happy to discuss any reasonable adjustments to the application process that may be required. If there is anything that you want to make us aware of then please note this at the time of your application.
Thanks for applying and don’t be discouraged if you don’t hear from us right away as we take the time to review a
