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Executive Product Manager, New Products
Pearson
Boston, MA, United States
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Description
At Pearson, we’re committed to a world that’s always learning and to our talented team who makes it all possible. From bringing lectures vividly to life to turning textbooks into laptop lessons, we are always re-examining the way people learn best, whether it’s one child in our own backyard or an education community across the globe. We are bold thinkers and standout innovators who motivate each other to explore new frontiers in an environment that supports and inspires us to always be better. By pushing the boundaries of technology — and each other to surpass these boundaries — we create seeds of learning that become the catalyst for the world’s innovations, personal and global, large and small.
Pearson is looking for a talented, driven, and entrepreneurial leader to build and execute strategy for new courseware product initiatives within higher education. The successful candidate will be responsible for synthesizing customer and industry insight to define and promote value propositions for new courseware products and identify corresponding areas for growth and innovation. As part of these efforts, the Executive Product Manager, New Products will lead a cross-functional team to identify customer problems and ideate, explore, and validate solution concepts that solve them. This individual will direct the team’s collaboration with experts across the higher education line-of-business, including discipline-specific portfolio managers, marketing, content development, text/media production, learning and user experience design, program management, and capability product managers. The Executive Product Manager will champion successful courseware product designs through the full product lifecycle to ensure they deliver their promise for learners and instructors.
Reporting to: Head of Product Management, New Products and Markets
This is a high-visibility leadership role with responsibility for the direction and performance of new product initiatives. To be successful in this position you will need to synthesize diverse inputs to establish strategic vision for emerging courseware products and motivate a cross-functional team to explore, validate and transition successful prototypes that deliver on this vision. You will assemble and execute a pipeline of product and market investigation activities, prioritizing based on anticipated ROI and risk. A key performance metric will be the financial contribution of new product initiatives to Pearson’s bottom line. In short, you will be expected to identify, incubate, and execute innovative courseware product ideas that will drive long-term product success and contribute to Pearson’s growth and profitability goals.
Responsibilities
Identify growth opportunities
• Collaborate with portfolio and content strategists, geography leads, and others to identify and strategize new courseware product opportunities in higher education
• Commission and synthesize market research activities, informed by on-going dialog with customers, editorial teams, and our learning design group
Develop strategy for new courseware product concepts
• Synthesize customer insight and market research to define value propositions, business justifications, and high-level user requirements for new courseware product concepts
• Identify corresponding short- and long-range success metrics (e.g. NPS scores, digital registration growth, profitability) for these initiatives
• Assess product-market fit and and business model fit and develop corresponding validation strategies
Design and validate product concepts
• Collaborate with other members of the New Products team, along with User Experience, Learning Design, Engineering, and/or external partners, to translate business and product strategy into detailed requirements and prototypes
• Oversee activities to validate fit, learner outcomes, and market demand from users and customers
• Present validation findings to senior executives to secure resources for ongoing development
Qualifications
Education and experience
• Bachelor’s degree required
• MBA or equivalent business experience required; ideal candidates will have direct experience with the higher education courseware market
• 8 years product strategy and/or product management experience
• Experience working with a highly experimental portfolio (e.g. launch, fail and then apply lessons learned to relentlessly try again)
• Experience validating product-market and business model fit
• Track record of ideating and refining successful business models for emerging products
• Demonstrated experience developing compelling product visions and business justifications combined with a track record of successful execution
• Recognized as an outstanding leader capable of collaborating with senior leadership on high-growth initiatives
Skills and personal qualities
• Ability to hit the ground running – a confident, entrepreneurial self-starter who can work with little management guidance or direction
• Ability to listen to different perspectives and respond objectively and constructively to new ideas
• Passion for education, technology, and building immersive learning experiences
• Ability to deal with ambiguity, find creative resolutions and drive for results
• Track record of taking on big challenges and delivering despite obstacles and limited resources
• Strong decision-making, negotiation, and relationship management skills – ability to balance and reconcile conflicting interests
• Ability to lead within cross-functional virtual teams spanning multiple regions and cultures
• Outstanding writing and presentation skills