Portfolio Product Manager

We believe in the power and joy of learning

At Cengage Group, our employees have a direct impact in helping students 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.  

Our culture values diversity, engagement, and discovery

Our business is driven by our strong culture, and we know that creating an inclusive and diverse workplace is absolutely essential to the success of our company and our learners, as well as our individual well-being. We recognize the value of diverse perspectives in everything we do, and strive to ensure employees of all levels and backgrounds feel empowered to voice their ideas and bring their authentic selves to work. We achieve these priorities through inclusive programs, benefits, and initiatives that are integrated into the fabric of how we work every day. To learn more, please see https://www.cengagegroup.com/about/inclusion-and-diversity/.   

The Portfolio Product Manager (PPM) is a Cengage Academic Product Management Role at Cengage. 

The PPM creates product strategy by understanding the audience, analyzing the market and competitive trends, developing hypotheses, testing ideas in the market, processing data, and ultimately making product design decisions based on these insights and evidence. The PPM leads product development, collaborating with team members to ensure on-time delivery of high-quality learning experiences. The PPM 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 particular PPM role will support our Healthcare portfolio within the Career team.  

What you'll do here:

• Lead a profitable product line and develop strategic business plans.

• 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.

• Balance experience, market knowledge, and insights to make impactful decisions and long-term plans.

• Translate priorities into organized end-to-end 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 and instructors.

• Establish and maintain relationships with key authors and adoption decision makers to gain customer insights, strengthen adoptions, and identify new talent.

• 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.

• Partner closely with Marketing and Sales teams to seed and secure adoptions.

• Work closely with colleagues in other functional areas (Learning Design, Content Production, Marketing, Sales, Technology, etc.).

• Create compelling needs-based discipline, course, and product positioning and customer segments as inputs for campaign and sales enablement efforts.

• Make presentations at internal and external meetings, campus visits, and academic conventions in support of sales efforts and to drive sales.   

Skills you will need here:

• Creative and curious problem solving and collaboration

• Understanding of the educational technology and publishing industry

• 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 3 years in product management, product development, sales, marketing, or other relevant management role

• Cross-functional team leadership experience

• Ab