Portfolio Manager

We believe in the power and joy of learning

At Cengage, our employees have a direct impact in helping learners around the world discover the power and joy of learning. We are bonded by our shared purpose – driving innovation that helps millions of learners improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.

The Portfolio Manager (PM) is a Cengage School Portfolio Management Role at Cengage.

As the Portfolio Manager for Cengage School, you’ll lead a portfolio of market-leading educational products within Gale K12 School and Public Library markets. The PM develops product strategy by understanding the audience, analyzing the market and competitive trends, developing hypotheses, testing ideas in the market, processing data, and ultimately making strategic product decisions based on these insights and evidence.

The PM leads product development, collaborating with team members to ensure on-time delivery of high-quality learning experiences. The PM clearly articulates the features and benefits of a product to the market, enabling the creation and delivery of compelling messaging for target audiences through measurable campaigns and programs. This role will support the Gale K12 (Science) portfolio in the School market, with some crossover into the Public Library space.

What you'll do here:

• Lead a profitable product line by being responsible for the content strategy roadmap for the Gale K12 (Science) suite of products, inclusive of In Context, eBooks, and supplemental curriculum.
• Provide product leadership, representing the portfolio and customers across audiences.
• Use data to make market-informed business proposals, take mitigated risks, and guide strategic decisions.
• Defines long-term goals based on research and trends, and sets metrics-driven milestones, making connections across datasets and courses to devise solutions to sophisticated business challenges
• Balance experience, market knowledge, and insights to make impactful decisions and long-term plans.
• Translate priorities into organized end-to-end strategic development plans with budgets, resources, performance goals, and key checkpoints.
• Provide project team direction, facilitating effective communication, and ensuring timely delivery of multiple products simultaneously within scope and budget.
• Cultivate an environment of creativity and collaboration.
• Deliver quality learning experiences to students, instructors, and librarians.
• Develop a deep understanding of competitors and an ability to anticipate competitor activity.
• Identify and test product ideas within segments, including the administration of focus groups, advisory boards, reviews, and customer meetings as appropriate.
• Regularly analyze product and portfolio plans to align forecasting and measurement of progress towards goals.
• Work across teams with colleagues in Digital, Marketing, Sales, Content Engineering, and other cross-functional teams to set and implement the content strategy, and to ensure successful release of products in the marketplace.
• Partner with colleagues in other functional areas on discipline-specific and pan-Cengage initiatives.
• Make presentations at internal and external meetings and academic conventions in support of sales efforts and to drive sales.
• Shares best practices across teams and functional groups.
• Skills you will need here: Creative and curious problem solving and collaboration
• Understanding of the K12 educational technology and publishing industry, with a specific focus on Science
• Ability to clearly articulate vision and strategy and help team members understand how their work impacts business success
• Customer focus; understanding of how customer needs and challenges translate into opportunities
• Demonstration of strong communication skills with keen ability to facilitate team meetings, presentations, focus groups, and interviews.
• BA or BS Degree
• Minimum 5 years in product management, product development, or other relevant portfolio management role
• Cross-functional team leadership experience
• Ability to inspire change through influence; honed social skills
• Self-discipline with a high degree of accountability
• Strong financial analysis and modeling skills and an understanding of business metrics
• Natural curiosity and willingness to learn paired with a desire for continuous improvement
• Proven written and verbal abilities enabling the preparation and presentation of information and recommendations to a diverse and senior level audience
• Expected travel ~10% of time
• Proficiency with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
• Cengage is committed to working with broad talent pools to attract and hire strong and most qualified individuals. Our job applicants are considered regardless of any classification protected by applicable federal, state, provincial or local laws.
• Cengage is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities including during our job application process. If you are an applicant with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in our job application process, please contact us at accommodations.ta@cengage.com .

About Cengage

Cengage, a global education technology company serving millions of learners, provides affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready. For more than 100 years, we have enabled the power and joy of learning with trusted, engaging content, and now, integrated digital platforms. We serve the higher education, workforce skills, secondary education, English language teaching and research markets worldwide.

Through our scalable technology, including MindTap and Cengage Unlimited, we support all learners who seek to improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education.