Security Manager, Intellectual Property Protection

Security Manager, Intellectual Property Protection

Welcome to the Funko-verse, a world built on pure imagination, a land governed by the philosophy that stories matter, a universe comprised of characters from countless fandoms, a galaxy of once upon a times and happily ever afters.

Funko is a purveyor of pop culture and a licensed-focused collectibles company. Funko currently holds thousands of licenses and the rights to create tens of thousands of characters one of the largest portfolios in the pop culture and collectibles industry. Funko's Pop! Vinyl is the number one stylized vinyl collectible on the market, selling millions of figures to fans around the world.

The Security Manager, Intellectual Property Protection is a leadership role within Funko's Information Security team, reporting directly to the Sr. Manager, Information Security. This manager owns the strategy and execution of protecting Funko's most sensitive intellectual property: pre-release product designs, digital assets, and confidential materials entrusted to Funko by third-party licensors. Funko's business depends on the trust of major entertainment licensors. Product designs are frequently created under embargo where any leak of imagery, names, or product details before the licensor's public announcement can damage the licensor's launch, breach contractual confidentiality obligations, and put the licensing relationship itself at risk. This role is accountable for ensuring that never happens. Its first priority is engineering, enforcing, and continuously verifying the embargo controls that protect unannounced licensed products across the entire lifecycle from concept art and licensor approvals through manufacturing, marketing, and retail launch. Its second priority is building and operating the data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities that back those controls. The role also contributes to security policy where it touches licensed IP, and as a member of the Information Security team, supports broader security operations and projects.

The role partners closely with Legal, Licensing, Product Development, Marketing, Sales, Sourcing, and IT, as well as with licensor security teams and external manufacturing and logistics partners. The ideal candidate is an experienced security professional with hands-on data protection and DLP skills, ideally with experience protecting embargoed or pre-release content in an entertainment, licensing, or consumer products environment.

Although this role sits within IT/Information Security, the role will coordinate closely with Legal and Licensing on IP risk, licensor obligations, confidentiality strategy, and enforcement-sensitive decisions.

What You'll Do

• Embargoed & Pre-Release Product Protection (Primary Focus)
• Own end-to-end technical protection of unannounced licensed products e.g., figures developed for a licensor's unannounced film, series, or game ensuring designs, renders, packaging, names, and launch timing do not leak prior to the licensor's public announcement.
• Engineer and enforce the embargo control framework for confidential projects: project code names, need-to-know access, segregated digital workspaces, restricted distribution lists, and recurring access reviews across product development, marketing, and sales systems.
• Maintain an inventory of active embargoed projects and their licensor-mandated reveal dates, and verify that controls are in place and operating for each project from kickoff through public announcement.
• Deploy and manage technical protections for digital design assets, including visible and forensic watermarking, digital rights management, secure digital asset management platforms, and controlled review/approval workflows with licensors.
• Establish secure handling requirements for physical pre-production items (sculpts, prototypes, paint masters, packaging samples) across offices, photo studios, trade shows, and in transit.
• Extend embargo and confidentiality controls to third parties manufacturers, agencies, photographers, logistics providers, and retail customers through contractual security requirements, onboarding assessments, and ongoing verification.
• Review and document systems and workflows that reveal Funko confidential information to third parties, including digital asset management platforms, collaboration tools, vendor/customer portals, licensor approval workflows, APIs, integrations, shared drives, and file-transfer tools.
• Support Legal and Licensing in managing licensor, customer, vendor, supplier, manufacturer, agency, and other external stakeholder security expectations tied to confidential assets.
• Proactively monitor high-risk leak channels, including factory floor photography, early retail listings and sell-sheets, marketplace sales of pre-release items, and fan-community and social media leaks, and drive rapid containment when leaks are detected.
• Lead investigations into leaks of embargoed product information, including forensic analysis (e.g., tracing leaked assets via watermarks), root cause identification, and corrective action, in partnership with Legal and Licensing.
• Run embargo readiness reviews ahead of major licensor announcements, partner with licensor security teams on coordinated reveal plans, and support licensor security audits and assessments.

2. Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

• Engineer, deploy, and operate DLP controls across endpoints, email, web, and cloud applications to detect and block unauthorized movement of embargoed assets, licensed IP, and other confidential data.
• Build and tune detection rules for high-risk exfiltration paths: i.e. personal email and cloud storage, removable media, screenshots and photography of design assets, unmanaged devices and triage and respond to DLP alerts.
• Implement and maintain data classification and labeling for licensed IP and pre-release product data, integrated with DLP enforcement.
• Support insider risk monitoring for roles with access to embargoed assets, in coordination with Legal and HR and in accordance with applicable privacy laws and company policy.
• Measure and report DLP coverage and efficacy for embargoed assets to the Director, Information Security.

3. Broader Information Security Operations & Projects

• As a member of the Information Security team, participate in security operations, including incident response, alert triage support, and on-call rotations as assigned.
• Contribute engineering effort to broader Information Security roadmap projects (e.g., IAM, cloud security, monitoring, and tooling initiatives), particularly where they intersect with IP protection.
• Evaluate, implement, and support new security applications, services, and solutions in partnership with IT and Information Security engineering.
• Maintain an incident response playbook for pre-announcement leak scenarios integrated with the team's broader IR process, and manage incident communications with affected licensors in partnership with Legal and Licensing.
• Support enforcement actions against infringement and unauthorized distribution in partnership with Legal and Licensing, including evidence preservation and takedown coordination.

What You'll Bring

• 7+ years of professional experience in information security, with at least 3 years in a hands-on security engineering role focused on data protection, DLP, insider risk, or content security.
• Significant experience protecting embargoed or pre-release content such as unannounced products, films, games, or marketing campaigns, under licensor or studio confidentiality requirements (e.g., Disney, WB, or similar major entertainment studios); entertainment, licensing, retail, or consumer products industry experience strongly preferred.
• Hands-on experience deploying, tuning, and operating DLP and data protection tooling across endpoint, email, and cloud, including detection rule development and alert triage.
• Demonstrated success engineering confidential project controls: need-to-know access models, code-named projects, segregated workspaces, and coordinated reveal/announcement plans.
• Working knowledge of technical content protections such as forensic watermarking, DRM, and secure digital asset management.
• Solid general security engineering foundation: identity and access management, cloud and SaaS security, endpoint security, and logging/monitoring sufficient to contribute to broader Information Security operations and projects; scripting/automation skills (e.g., Python, PowerShell) are a plus.
• Experience supporting sensitive investigations, including digital forensics fundamentals, evidence handling, and partnership with Legal and HR.
• Experience assessing third-party/vendor security risk, ideally including manufacturing or supply chain partners.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience; relevant certifications (e.g., CISSP, GIAC, CISM, OSCP) are a plus.
• Exceptional communication and influencing skills, both internally and with external licensors, vendors, and customers.
• Ability to manage complex, cross-functional projects including stepping into in-flight efforts and to react quickly and calmly to time-sensitive security incidents.
• Highly self-motivated; accepts ownership, welcomes responsibility, and maintains focus and the confidence of key stakeholders under pressure.

Salary Information

The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $121,500-$181,000 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate's qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location