Senior Director, Production - Black Sky Creative

Sony Music Global Job Board•Los Angeles, CA

8d•$140,000 - $170,000•Onsite

About The Position

Sony Music Entertainment is a global music company with a presence in over 70 countries, supporting a diverse range of artists and creators. Black Sky Creative, a boutique experiential agency within Sony Music Entertainment, designs and builds permanent retail and hospitality environments and produces pop-up activations for leading brands. The Senior Director of Production is the senior operational leader responsible for projects from initial concept through final delivery. This role is core to logistics, project management, and operations, with significant client-facing responsibilities. The position involves joining initial conversations as the operational expert, assessing feasibility, developing plans, and managing projects independently once approved. The role requires overseeing creative direction through external partners, ensuring quality and progress, with a particular focus on permanent retail and hospitality builds. The team is lean, requiring adaptability to manage projects of varying scales, from large flagship buildouts to smaller, faster activations.

Requirements

Significant experience leading production or construction delivery in experiential, retail environments, themed entertainment, general contracting, or a closely related field.
A strong track record on permanent buildouts, including general contractor management and life safety, not only temporary events.
Executive presence and credibility in a room with senior stakeholders, with the confidence to give an honest feasibility read in real time rather than deferring every answer.
Estimating and pricing skill: the ability to scope a project and build a realistic budget by validating costs with vendors and partners before anyone commits to it.
Deep project management skill and the operational instincts to run many projects at once without dropping details.
Proven budget ownership and vendor management across construction and specialty fabrication.
A builder of freelance based teams, with a deep existing network of producers, designers, technical specialists, creative partners, and vendors to assemble from.
A working command of the permitting process. You do not need to be a permitting expert, but you do need to understand it well enough to direct expediters and keep approvals on schedule.
The judgment to oversee and direct creative partners even though you are not the creative author.
A track record of running significant projects autonomously, owning the outcome from approval through opening without needing an owner alongside you.
Sound judgment about what to decide yourself and what to escalate, so leadership stays informed without being pulled into the day to day.
Comfort operating at more than one altitude, directing a large team on a flagship build and rolling up your sleeves on a smaller job in the same week.
A calm, solutions first temperament under pressure, and the leadership to grow a developing team.

Responsibilities

Join leadership in conversations with internal Sony stakeholders and external clients as the senior operational and feasibility voice.
Draw out project objectives, scope, timelines, and success criteria in discovery conversations, and ask the questions that expose what a project will really involve.
Evaluate feasibility, operational complexity, staffing requirements, and financial viability before we commit, and give leadership a clear read on whether and how we can deliver.
Develop preliminary budgets, schedules, resource plans, and execution strategies ahead of project approval.
Build realistic estimates before greenlight, pricing the work by validating costs directly with vendors, freelancers, and partners rather than guessing.
Identify risks and resource requirements early, and turn an idea into an executable project that leadership can approve.
Help win work by turning opportunities into executable, approvable plans, giving clients and stakeholders confidence that what we propose can actually be delivered.
Support leadership on pitches, proposals, and new business opportunities with credible plans, timelines, and numbers.
Earn the trust of client and Sony stakeholders through reliable delivery, and surface opportunities for future work as they emerge.
Own the full project lifecycle from kickoff through delivery across permanent buildouts, pop ups, events, and tours.
Own the schedules, critical paths, and production plans that keep complex projects on track, building them directly on major work and holding the team to them elsewhere.
Act as the single operational point of accountability for delivery on every active project, running approved work independently rather than through leadership.
Serve as the primary day to day contact for clients and Sony stakeholders once a project is underway, keeping leadership informed and escalating only what truly needs them.
Prioritize across a portfolio of concurrent projects and opportunities, deciding where to deploy limited resources.
Present updates, recommendations, and risks to Sony leadership and client stakeholders with clarity and candor, including saying no to a timeline that will not work.
Oversee ground up and tenant improvement construction for permanent retail and hospitality environments.
Direct architects, general contractors, engineers, and inspectors through design, permitting, construction, and closeout.
Own site walks and punch list closeout, staying close enough to the site to drive every project to a clean opening.
Direct permitting strategy and oversee permit expediters and consultants, understanding the process well enough to hold them accountable through plan check and life safety review.
Own our vendor bench of fabricators, specialty vendors, and AV, IT, and low voltage partners, negotiating key relationships yourself and holding the team accountable on the rest.
Own delivery of temporary experiences, from load in through install and strike, resourced through our producers and freelance crews.
Own project budgets from preliminary estimate through actualization, in partnership with our Director of Finance.
Approve vendor estimates and invoices, and hold every project within its approved number.
Identify scope creep early and manage change orders with clients before they erode the project.
Protect the commercial health of each project, so that work is not only delivered on budget but is financially successful.
Flag risk early and drive the tradeoffs that protect budget, schedule, and quality.
Manage outsourced creative partners and our in house renderings resource, translating client goals into clear creative briefs.
Hold the quality bar on creative deliverables and confirm the work meets the client vision.
Keep creative and production in sync so design intent survives contact with buildability and budget.
Lead and develop our production team, including experienced and emerging producers and technical production staff.
Assemble the right team for every project from the ground up, composing the mix of internal staff, freelance producers, designers, technical specialists, creative partners, and vendors that each engagement calls for rather than working with whoever is already assigned.
Lead cross functional teams through execution, holding the line on accountability, communication, and quality.
Manage internal resources while scaling external teams up and down as project needs evolve.
Set standards and build the systems that let a lean team deliver a high volume of activations.