[Hiring] Lead, Business Development & Licensing @Warner Music Group

Role Description

As Director, Business Development & Licensing, you'll own the business function across both sides of the equation, working closely with senior leadership, cross-functional teams, and external partners across the music, technology, and legal worlds. Your work will directly shape the commercial architecture of AI attribution at scale.

You will lead Sureel's business function, reporting to the CEO and two Co-Presidents. This is a senior, commercially focused role. When Sureel is negotiating with a service provider or a rights holder, you will own the business function of that negotiation.

A key part of the role will be developing business models and modeling outcomes for charging clients, including DSPs and AI companies. A strong understanding of economics and music rights will be important.

Your objective is to structure agreements that increase adoption of Sureel's infrastructure, create repeatable commercial models, and establish frameworks that can scale across multiple rights holders, AI companies, and markets.

You will negotiate licensing models, revenue structures, payment flows, and the economic frameworks that determine how permissions through Sureel's technology translate into compensation. You will also oversee the business use cases for integrating Sureel's infrastructure with AI companies and DSPs, defining what a commercially viable integration looks like and structuring the terms around it.

This is an opportunity to help define the business function of a company working in a new and evolving area, and to help shape how creators are compensated in the age of AI.

What you'll do:

• Own the business function for Sureel's negotiations, whether with AI companies, DSPs, other digital service providers, or rights holders, leading commercial strategy, deal structure, and terms from first conversation through signature.
• Negotiate the economics of platform integrations, including licensing models, revenue structures, payment flows, and frameworks that reflect the value of Sureel's technology alongside rights holders' catalog and distribution positions.
• Develop the business use cases for integrating Sureel's infrastructure with AI companies and DSPs, defining commercial success and prioritizing opportunities based on enterprise value.
• Develop licensing and economic frameworks for an emerging category, using relevant AI and rights-technology transactions to inform agreements that can work across different partners and markets.
• Structure multi-stakeholder commercial arrangements among rights holders and industry participants, positioning Sureel's infrastructure as the mechanism for executing those agreements.
• Partner with Client Relations on rights-holder relationships, owning the commercial terms and deal economics while they lead the broader relationship and delivery.
• Work closely with Warner Music Group counterparts on commercial terms, licensing structures, and strategic priorities.
• Provide market intelligence on emerging technologies, competitive developments, licensing innovation, and deal dynamics across the AI and DSP landscape.
• Represent Sureel with industry and standards organizations, including DDEX, WIPO, and other initiatives shaping AI rights and licensing.
• Develop pricing and packaging for Sureel's platform, including enterprise fees, API and usage-based pricing, transaction fees, revenue share, licensing administration, analytics, and hybrid structures.
• Create repeatable commercial and licensing frameworks that can scale across partners rather than requiring every agreement to be built from scratch.
• Help structure how Sureel infrastructure is used in commercial agreements, including rights, permissions, guardrails, attribution, reporting, and economic obligations between rights holders and AI companies.
• Handle confidential and proprietary information, including deal terms, partner economics, and negotiations with discretion and integrity.
• Help shape emerging industry standards and licensing frameworks so they can be implemented programmatically and work with Sureel's architecture.

Qualifications

• Deep experience structuring and negotiating commercial agreements in music, media, or technology, including licensing deals, platform integrations, revenue-share structures, or rights-technology transactions.
• Owned the business side of negotiations with platforms, DSPs, technology companies, or rights holders and carried complex deals from term sheet through signature.
• Understanding of the economics of the music industry: how rights generate revenue, how licensing frameworks are built, and how value flows between platforms, intermediaries, and rights holders.
• Comfortable with data and financial detail, able to model a revenue structure, pressure-test assumptions, and explain the business logic clearly to technical teams and senior counterparties.
• Able to structure complex deals and find approaches that work for the different parties involved.
• Build trust quickly and represent leadership in high-stakes negotiations, make judgment calls on terms, and know when to escalate.
• Communicate clearly in writing and in person and can stay calm in a fast-moving environment.
• Understanding of how pricing, licensing structures, technical standards, and ecosystem incentives can support platform adoption and durable commercial outcomes.
• Interest in the music industry and enjoyment of working in a small, collaborative, startup-paced team.

Requirements

• Direct experience negotiating with AI companies, DSPs, or other digital service providers on licensing, integration, or commercial partnership terms.
• Experience working with artists, labels, publishers, or CMOs/PROs on the commercial side, or serving as a senior deal advisor to them.
• Experience across deal structuring and licensing, business development, commercial strategy, or partnerships.
• Involvement in industry licensing, standards, or policy initiatives shaping how AI and rights interact.
• Experience working directly with C-level executives on commercial strategy, negotiation preparation, and translating senior conversations into agreements.
• Experience developing commercial models for infrastructure, APIs, marketplaces, payments, rights technology, or other platforms where value is monetized across multiple layers of a transaction.
• Curiosity about the music and entertainment landscape and AI's impact on creators.

Benefits

• Sureel AI is an independent, federated company within Warner Music Group.
• Commitment to building a diverse team and to fair recognition for creators everywhere.