Senior Director of Product Management - Cyber and Trades

Ascend Learning is a national leader in data driven, online educational solutions for learners, educators and employers in high-growth, licensure-driven professions spanning healthcare, fitness and wellness, skilled trades, insurance, and financial services. We are passionate about accelerating learning while impacting job readiness, employment success and employee retention with the belief that our work changes lives.

Our culture is intentionally results-driven and selfless with a relentless focus on our customers. We believe in trust, transparency, freedom, and responsibility with a commitment to meritocracy, inclusion, and diversity of thought. Continual investment in our over 1500 employees is also a core principle realized through ongoing professional development and providing opportunities to grow, develop and lead. Ascend Learning is headquartered in Burlington, MA with additional office locations and remote workers in cities across the U.S.

Jones and Bartlett Learning is searching for a Senior Director of Product Management to drive the growth strategy and product roadmap development for JBL's Cyber and Trades education markets. Both markets are high-growth opportunities, and the Senior Director will lead strategic and tactical efforts to identify new market opportunities, new customers and solutions, and efforts to accelerate commercial success of the product lines. This position leads the creation and achievement of new solutions from idea to launch to ongoing adoption, usage and profitability. If you enjoy working directly with customers to solve complex needs through innovative strategies that drive our business forward, this role could be for you.

Reporting to the JBL/PSG General Manager, the ideal candidate will have a history of bringing new and impactful products and business models to market that produce measurable customer outcomes and business return on investment. This person needs to be a creative/critical thinker, a data-driven strategist, an innovator, a leader, a collaborator, and an evangelist for our customers and products.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the cyber and trades product strategy, go to market launch and roadmap inclusive of content, tech milestones and deliverables to support current product portfolios as well as the future expansion/evolution.
• Coordinate GTM (go to market) activities, including aligning and managing sales, marketing and product management efforts.
• Drive the overall execution of product lifecycle management including strategy, development, launch, maintenance of products/solutions in all markets as part of a cross functional business team.
• Partner with Content Strategists, sales and engineering team to drive execution of holistic roadmap
• Manage department-level and product budgets
• Responsible for brand's product portfolio P&L and forecasting. Oversees pricing across brand's portfolio of products and solutions to ensure profitable growth.
• Collaborate with business and cross functional leaders/departments on strategic direction and growth opportunities for the broader organization
• Define and validate market problems, leading research approach with external and internal stakeholders as well as industry experts
• Lead approach and strategic effort for future market expansion
• Oversee monitoring of the competitive landscape and strategy development for winning against the competition
• Identifying Potential Acquisition Targets, third party partners, and divestiture candidates along with participating in acquisition reviews
• Identify and lead third-party partnerships to expand reach and expand solution sets
• Rigorously explore new mediums and opportunities for growth for faculty and learners, including use of AI, simulations and VR and expansion of learning modalities

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree; Master's preferred
• 12+ Years in Product Management, Product Development, or related field
• Experience in high-tech, cybersecurity and trades education solutions preferred
• Experience with product management processes such as Pragmatic Marketing preferred
• Experience with Agile methodologies preferred

Skills and Abilities:

• Determine customer needs and desires by specifying and conducting research, implementing rapid iterative loops to learn, build, and deliver.
• Expertise in researching and developing strong insights for the customer segments and the industry in which they work and understands the dynamics of cyber and trades markets
• Familiarity with the current technologies and content development in education markets, and with the emerging technologies that will serve them in the future
• Fluent in software product development, including quality and reliability techniques
• Superior business and data analysis acumen
• Boldness to create and shape markets whenever possible, exploiting Company technologies, market positions and brand
• Ability to synthesize market and customer feedback and existing and new products into solutions
• Expertise delivering complex projects to meet demanding feature, cost, quality and introduction date targets
• Demonstrable communication skills and ability to lead an organization to develop market leading products and solutions
• Proven communication skills and ability to influence colleagues
• Excels at translating customer feedback, data, and intuition into high performing product solutions
• Strong ability to guide and prioritize based on product solution and client needs
• Proven ability to drive financial results
• Strong and effective decision maker

Ascend Learning, LLC is proud to be an equal opportunity employer (M/F/Vets/Disabled). No agency or search firm submissions will be accepted. Applications for U.S. based positions with Ascend Learning, LLC must be legally authorized to work in the United States and verification of employment eligibility will be required at the time of hire.

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