Commissioning Editor/Publisher - Maths (12 month contract)
- Recruiter
- PEARSON EDUCATION LTD-1
- Location
- Oxford
- Salary
- Competitive
- Posted
- 20 Apr 2018
- Closes
- 30 Apr 2018
- Sectors
- Education & Teaching, Teaching Assistant
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full Time
The UK Schools Secondary Maths team is a dedicated, fun, supportive and knowledgeable group of people who work creatively to produce Maths teaching and learning resources for secondary school students and their teachers. We work in a collaborative organisation with people from many job functions working together to create resources which really have an impact in classrooms. This role can be based in Oxford or London. You'll report into the Head of Maths.
About the role
We are looking for an energetic and proactive person with the skills to create market winning products and services and a passion for education to join our Secondary Maths team to cover a maternity leave Product Manager role. In this role you will be responsible for gaining market insight and finding gaps or needs and developing strategy, trialling ideas and working out how we can win in our markets. You will manage teams to deliver products and services to market on time, to quality and within budget. You will manage budgets working with our media, design, supplier management, publishing, production and editorial teams on defining and managing costs. In this role you will also maintain our current services out in the marketing and build upon them to gain even more success.
A day in the life of???.
During a typical day here, you can expect to be involved in these activities:
Market understanding
- Devising and managing market research to test propositions with our core customer segments and hone these propositions to meet market need. This will include desk and field market research. It may also mean drawing on or commissioning academic research.
- Researching and building your understanding of the Maths UK and International school markets to ensure that everything we do improves learning and is well-researched and evidence-based
Strategy and financial planning
- Contributing to our annual financial planning processes as required
- Managing budgets, and if needed P&Ls, working with internal teams to draw together forecasts and costings
- Creating business cases for your ideas to meet market needs to get buy-in from various stakeholders in the business
Proposition development and execution
- Presenting publishing updates to the business in regular Product Council/ "brand" meetings
- Developing commercially successful propositions which deliver real value for teachers and which really work for children
- Finding key author talent, commissioning content and managing relationships with authors and Series Editors.
- Quality assurance of content at key points during its development
- Managing teams of editors to deliver publishing proposals on time, to desired quality and to budget and leading cross-functional teams from across the business involved in product creation
- Supporting team members to problem solve and building a positive working culture
- Briefing customer-facing teams (in particular Post-sales Service teams, Sales, Marketing) on products if required
- Presenting to external stakeholders e.g. teachers, headteachers if required
- Liaising with Pearson teams outside Learning Services, such as our Technology team as needed to advance the development of a product or service.
- Monitoring competitor activity and keeping up to date with changes in the education landscape (for example curriculum and policy) to ensure you are developing the best products and services for our customers
Location: The role can be based either from our High Holborn or Oxford offices
Qualifications
Who are we looking for?
You'll have the following skills and qualities:
- Publishing skills, creative thinking and customer empathy: the ability to create and articulate propositions based soundly on customer needs (we will also consider Maths teachers with no prior publishing experience if they can demonstrate commercial accumen)
- Communication, relationship building and influencing skills both within the company and with external stakeholders
- Commercial and financial planning skills: the ability to work with a budget and manage costs and to contribute to financial planning processes
- Organisational and project management skills: the ability to plan and manage projects and the workload of any line managed and mentored staff
Desirable:
- Maths education experience
- Strategic thinking skills: the ability to think strategically, identify attractive market segments and key sources of competitive advantage
- Education/teaching experience
- Digital skills: the ability to work with technology teams to develop the digital part of propositions
You don't need to have any prior experience in the Schools sector, although we do like to work with people who have a genuine interest in this sector.
More great things about working here???.
We'll expect a lot and we know you'll do great work, so we give a lot back with some of the best benefits in the business. We know that one size doesn't fit all so our workplace programs meet the different needs of our diverse teams, and their families too. There is a range of options, too many to list here, but when you join you can expect:
- a starting holiday of 25 days increasing to 30, with options to flex up or down
- an annual incentive plan
- generous pension scheme - contributions are double matched by Pearson
- maternity, paternity, and family care leave as well as Flexible Work policies
- stock purchase options
- health plans, and an employee assistance programme for you and your family, to help balance work, family and personal life
Making a greater impact is easy at Pearson. Get involved in our I Made an impACT campaign by volunteering, giving and sharing, or sign up to an event in our Diversity & Inclusion calendar, and check out one of our many Wellbeing at Work initiatives. Just like learning, working here can provide discovery, challenge, inspiration and wonder.
If we sound like a good match for you, or maybe for a friend, we'd love to receive an application. Find out more about how learning makes us, at website.