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Vice President, Pricing & Market Insights
Pearson
Hoboken, NJ, United States
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Description
Vice President, Pricing & Market Insights
Pearson is a global education company that helps people around the world to make progress in their lives through learning. With a rich heritage that combines 150 years of experience in publishing with the latest learning technology and digital services, we help people to learn whatever, wherever and however they choose.
We are now transforming Pearson to accelerate our activity in digital learning, education services and emerging markets. This will enable us to make a lasting impact in helping to solve some of the most important challenges in global education.
We believe education is a vital force that can empower people, help them to reach their potential and contribute to more connected communities, all around the world.
Our strength comes from our outstanding people; our strong relationships in the education world; our expertise in using technology to help people learn; our global footprint and local reach; and our position as a profitable, global company with a unifying sense of purpose.
Across the world we believe strength and success comes from diversity in our people - all qualified applicants are encouraged to apply. In the US, Pearson is an Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V/D, and a member of E-Verify.
Position Summary
Pearson is seeking a highly qualified individual for the role of Vice President of Pricing & Market Insights. This new role will oversee a global team with responsibility for developing and executing key market research to derive and effectively communicate actionable insights in support of pricing and bundling strategy, product and portfolio strategy, product development, and other key business activities.
The VP Pricing & Market Insights will play an important role in shaping Pearson’s evolving global product and go-to-market strategies, and helping to drive the acceleration of Pearson’s digital transformation.
Major Responsibilities
• Build a global Center of Excellence for strategic and operational pricing analysis and recommendations, market research and other insights to support Pearson’s competitive performance and strategy.
• Inform business decisions by delivering actionable insights to key stakeholders across the company through primary and secondary research and analysis on consumers (e.g., segmentation, market sizing, social and demographic trends, audience measurement, media research and consumer tracking studies, etc.).
• Lead efforts, in collaboration with key partners across Pearson, to design and implement governance processes for global pricing and market research activities.
• Lead efforts, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders across Pearson, to develop the Market Research & Insights program and a community of market research community across Pearson to promote collaboration, information and skill sharing, and career development through activities such as. This includes standing up periodic forums, lunch and learn sessions, and supporting online/social tools.
• Think strategically about challenges being faced by the industry, and work closely with business management to identify impactful opportunities for research and analysis to provide actionable insights that will improve business results and customer experience.
• Conduct primary research related to consumer experience and preferences, and serve as a center of excellence for concept testing, survey design and administration.
• Organize and synthesize insights from secondary research sources, and lead our participation in syndicated studies.
• Present and disseminate research to internal stakeholders; write actionable and compelling reports, articles and white papers.
• Develop programs with leading research vendors and universities; attend conferences and seminars.
• Establish mechanisms to systematically curate and share learnings across the organization via various channels (website, email, etc.).
• Coordinate with Global Marketing, North America, Core, and Growth geographies, as well as other teams to prioritize, organize, and align research and insights activities.
• Drive the exploration and deployment of techniques which are both cutting edge and best practice (e.g., behavioral design).
• Directly lead a team of high-performing research analysts, build the team’s capability and expertise, enabling Pearson to better identify and respond to demographic and social trends, and deliver a superior customer proposition and business results.
• Serve as an advisor to groups engaged in market research across the Company and create a community across groups engaged in market research and analysis.
• Partner effectively with external consultants and vendors, as appropriate, for some projects.
Critical Competencies for Success
Transformational Leadership
The successful candidate will have delivered a transformational agenda in market research and analysis in a complex, matrixed organization. Within the culture of Pearson, there is a need to form close ties with the business units to create a culture that relies more heavily on fact-based decision-making from new sources of data and enables Pearson to create value through improved customer value management, marketing and agent recruiting. This executive will deliver high levels of service, quality and control through applied research and analysis to his/her business partners.
The Vice President of Pricing & Market Insights will inspire a faster, quality approach to solving business issues through an engaged, solutions-oriented and politically self-aware style. This successful candidate will have led change projects that required crafting new approaches and capabilities.
To deliver on this mission, the successful candidate must:
• Be able to clearly communicate the insights and value-add from research and analysis and demonstrate how these insights will help solve the business’ strategic objectives.
• Be an innovator who enjoys the complexity of problems but is driven by the usefulness of the solution's application.
Collaboration and Influencing
The Vice President, Pricing & Market Insights will possess a dynamic, collaborative style that will effectively allow for the development of strong relationships with business partners within Pearson. He/she must have strong interpersonal, communication, presentation, and influencing skills necessary for interaction with business leaders and teams across all levels of the organization. This leader will have the skills to solve problems personally, give feedback, manage others, and take decisive action to ensure research and analysis is relevant and high quality.
The successful candidate will need to:
• Be capable of building strong collaborative relationships with senior business leaders, educating them on the possibilities and value of research and analysis and driving change through influence.
• Be politically and organizationally astute and possess a strong client orientation.
• Demonstrate a capacity to manage high-performing teams and be effective at collaborating with peers and teams across the business.
Strong Technical Acumen combined with a Strategic Orientation
The Vice President, Pricing & Market Insights will demonstrate a strong balance of strategic, analytical and business skills, with a high level of intellectual agility and capacity for original thought. He/ she will have demonstrated an ability to use research and analysis tools and technologies for a wide variety of applications. This individual will be able to provide value-added insight through research and analysis to his/her business partners. In addition, the successful candidate will:
• Possess the ability to set strategy/direction and follow through on execution to deliver high quality results.
• Partner closely with the lines of business to understand their strategy and research and analysis requirements, develop and propose alternatives, and negotiate deliverables.
• Demonstrate strong technical understanding of research and analysis techniques, tools and technologies and how to guide their use in applications for better understanding of customers and agents, informing product strategies, targeting customers with effective marketing campaigns and improving agent recruiting and retention.
• Be able to anticipate strategic developments and resources that are needed in the Marketing Strategy, Insights & Analytics Division over the next few years to meet the objectives of the business and the needs of customers and agents.
Learner Obsessed
The VP of Pricing & Market Insights must essentially be focused on learner's insights and innovations to differentiate Pearson's offer as well as accountable for bringing unique market insights (relative to audience, competition, segmentation, creative testing...) to make a difference in the market in the learner's experience.
Global - Local
The VP of Pricing & Market Insights must lead with both a local and global mindset, understanding how we operate within both the US and core/growth geographies and ensure coordination with other regions as well as integrate an understanding of economic, legal and political implications on Pearson's business.
Qualifications
Skills
• Very strong analytical and process-oriented problem-solving skills
• Detail orientated, with the ability to prioritize and deliver on projects in a timely fashion
• Knowledge of the latest qualitative research and analysis techniques
• Excellent understanding of statistical principles (e.g., multivariate analysis, sampling, etc.)
• Ability to function successfully in a collaborative, matrixed organization
• Self-motivated, with strong leadership skills and executive presence
• Able to work effectively in an environment with multiple priorities
• Excellent communication skills – verbal and written
• Ability to recognize existing or potential problems and provide viable solutions for consideration
• Expert level abilities in statistical analysis, business intelligence, data visualization tools, as well as standard productivity and web tools
Experience
• 10+ years overall experience
• 5+ years experience in marketing, market research or related field
• 5+ years experience in strategic and operational pricing analysis
• Experience leading market research, analysis or strategy development projects and teams
• Ability to travel globally
• Management consulting experience a strong plus
• Experience with primary research, including questionnaire development, survey logic and flow design, survey response coding
• Experience in the industry a plus
Education
• Bachelor’s Degree + MBA or other advanced degree required