Portfolio Manager (Remote)

Cengage Group

21h • $77,100 - $100,200 • Remote

About The Position

At Cengage, employees help students discover the power and joy of learning, driving innovation to improve lives through education. Cengage's Higher Education business supports learning and student success by providing materials and digital solutions to faculty and students in two-year, four-year, and vocational programs, serving over 10 million students in US higher ed. They offer quality, easy-to-use course materials from textbooks and eBooks to courseware such as MindTap and WebAssign, including Cengage Unlimited. The company values inclusion, engagement, and discovery, recognizing diverse perspectives. The Portfolio Manager (PM) is a Cengage School Portfolio Management Role responsible for creating product strategy by understanding the audience, analyzing market and competitive trends, developing hypotheses, testing ideas, processing data, and making product design decisions based on insights and evidence. The PM leads product development, collaborating with team members for on-time delivery of high-quality learning experiences, and articulates product features and benefits to the market for compelling messaging. This role specifically supports the Career and Technical Education portfolio in the School market. Cengage Group is a global education technology company serving millions of learners, providing affordable, quality digital products and services that equip students with the skills and competencies needed to be job ready. For more than 100 years, they have enabled the power and joy of learning with trusted, engaging content and integrated digital platforms, serving higher education, workforce skills, secondary education, English language teaching, and research markets worldwide. Through scalable technology, including MindTap and Cengage Unlimited, they support all learners who seek to improve their lives and achieve their dreams through education. They serve nearly 16 million digital users across various markets, combining trusted content, AI-powered insights, and scalable digital platforms to power learning for every future and drive meaningful outcomes.

Requirements

• 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 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
• Confirmed 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

Responsibilities

• 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.
• Defines long-term goals based on research and trends, and sets metrics-driven milestones, making connections across datasets and courses to devise solutions to complex business challenges.
• 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.) on discipline-specific and pan-Cengage initiatives.
• 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.
• Shares best practices across teams and functional groups.

Benefits

• programs, benefits, and initiatives that are integrated into the fabric of how we work every day
• comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package designed to support and empower our employees
• discretionary incentive bonus program

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Number of Employees: 501-1,000 employees