Product Technology Operations 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 Product Technology Operations Manager will serve as a dedicated operations partner to the SVP, Product Technology and the Product Technology VP leadership group across Higher Education, School, Work, Core Platforms, and Content Operations.
 

This role reports through the Enterprise Portfolio Management Organization while being embedded with and passionate about the Product Technology organization. Product Technology is a large, complex organization of approximately 200 employees, 600 contractors, and more than $80M in annual cash spend.
 

The Operations Manager will help build operational rigor, transparency, and coordination across Product Technology by managing core operating rhythms, improving data quality, supporting financial and vendor workflows, and enabling stronger leadership decision-making. This is a hands-on operations role for someone who is highly organized, analytically strong, comfortable with senior leaders, and able to drive follow-through across a matrixed environment.
 

What You’ll Do

Manage Product Technology Operating Cadences

• Collaborate with the SVP, Product Technology and VP leadership group to develop and sustain regular operating rhythms, leadership forums, planning cycles, retrospectives, and governance routines.

• Maintain a coordinated Product Technology operating calendar that links leadership meetings, financial planning cycles, vendor cadences, roster updates, reporting timelines, and Digital/EPMO governance routines.

• Prepare and improve meeting templates, agendas, leadership materials, decision logs, and action trackers.

• Capture key decisions, risks, dependencies, and follow-up actions from operating forums, ensuring clear ownership and timely closure.

• Collaborate with Product Management Operations, Program Management, Digital Leadership, and EPMO to synchronize Product Technology activities with wider portfolio and governance procedures.

Own Resource, Roster, and Organizational Data Quality

• Own day-to-day management, governance, and data quality for Product Technology roster and organizational information in Smartsheet or related systems.

• Collaborate with Product Technology leaders to verify employee, contractor, vendor, and team structure data.

• Define and sustain data definitions, refresh schedules, quality assessments, and source-of-truth procedures for roster and resource information.

• Identify and address inconsistencies across roster, vendor, financial, and portfolio data in collaboration with the relevant owners.

• Produce reporting and insights related to workforce composition, contractor mix, vendor utilization, resource concentration, and organizational capacity.

Assist Financial and Vendor Operations

• Collaborate with Finance, Procurement, EPMO, and Product Technology leaders to assist with budgeting, spend tracking, financial planning, CapEx/Opex mapping, and resource reporting.

• Prepare and validate operational inputs related to labor, contractors, vendors, and initiative-aligned costs.

• Coordinate operational follow-up for purchase orders, statements of work, invoice questions, vendor engagements, and related workflow dependencies.

• Support vendor performance cadences, contractor management processes, critical metric reviews, and operational governance.

• Track vendor-related actions, decisions, resource updates, and non-billable resource management.

Deliver Dashboards, Reporting, and Operational Insights

• Own the production and continuous improvement of Product Technology dashboards, operational metrics, and leadership reporting.

• Partner with collaborators to define the right metrics, reporting taxonomy, source systems, refresh cadence, and ownership model for key operational data.

• Convert workforce, vendor, financial, capacity, and portfolio data into clear insights, risks, and recommendations ready for decision-making.

• Reduce manual reporting effort by improving process rigor, data reliability, automation opportunities, and dashboard usability.

Improve Processes, Documentation, and Knowledge Management

• Maintain Product Technology operational artifacts, templates, dashboards, decision records, collaboration spaces, and knowledge repositories.

• Build lightweight SOPs, playbooks, and ownership frameworks for recurring operat