Director Product Management, Publishing

Job Description

OVERVIEW

Across our organization, we're building a workplace where collaboration is essential, diverse voices are heard, and inclusion is the key to our success.

The NPR Digital Media product team is where the rubber meets the road. It's where ideas move from thoughts to pixels to actual products and services that delight our digital audience. We work with a world-class team to make sure our products are used by millions. With a focus on our audience, and through partnership with teams across the entire NPR ecosystem, especially Member Stations, we're finding new ways to reach, engage and activate our growing audience and drive value for our entire digital network.

As the Director of Product Management - Publishing, you will own the product roadmap for NPR's publisher applications, with a heavy emphasis on next-generation content publishing. You will also work to ensure we deliver easy-to-use, seamlessly integrated tools that help content producers reach and understand the audience. This role is a holistic one and spans the entire Product Management set including leading the product strategy, establishing close ties with design, engineering and Member Stations, as well as driving success by working directly with a cross-functional team. In this high visibility role, you will lead a small team of professionals through idea generation, product definition, design, engineering and development and rollout.

RESPONSIBILITIES
• Report directly to the VP of Product and coordinate with other senior product leaders to establish and execute a comprehensive Digital Media vision and strategy that incorporates build and buy strategies relevant to the publisher products.
• Define, analyze and communicate to a variety of partners internally and externally the overall publisher product portfolio roadmap that aligns with NPR organizational goals and is supported by business cases, data, user research and competitive analysis.
• Work with a cross-functional team to translate business needs and technology directions into new and innovative products or features.
• Lead and mentor a best-in-class team of product managers, including preparing their regular performance reviews, and making effective recommendations regarding any hiring, promotion, and discipline for these positions.
• Work closely with engineering and design leads to develop feasible, viable and simple-to-use product solutions that delight publishers.
• Clearly communicate product portfolio performance and use data to evaluate and prioritize roadmap regularly.
• Manage product positioning and work with project management team to oversee release plans for the entire publisher product portfolio.
• Engage with NPR News and Member Stations regularly to maintain expert level understanding of their publishing, distribution and audience engagement problems and how NPR's digital platform can solve them.
• Collaborate with Member Engagement on product implementations and rollout efforts
• Contribute to a culture of collaboration and innovation across all disciplines.
• Cultivate and support an inclusive and equitable workplace culture

QUALIFICATIONS

Requirements:
• Leadership skills – demonstrated success coaching and mentoring a small team of product managers.
• Excellent customer experience intuition - demonstrated success in creating innovative, user-friendly websites and/or mobile applications.
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills – extreme comfort with data-driven decision making and performing financial and operational analysis.
• Implementation proficiency – ability to translate strategic differentiators into innovative and detailed product requirements.
• Excellent communication skills - demonstrated success for building buy-in for innovative and bold product vision.
• Technical aptitude - ability to understand and discuss architectural concepts, schedule tradeoffs and new opportunities with technical team members.
• Passion for public media's digital future.

Qualifications:
• 8+ years proven product management experience
• Experience building, motivating and leading highly productive teams
• Familiarity with content management and strategies (especially rich-media) including storage, sharing and distribution.
• Experience in inspiring UX/UI designers to develop web and/or mobile products

PREFERRED SKILLS
• Experience building and launching B2B products.
• Fluent with the challenges facing journalism organizations in the digital media space.
• Experience working within a network or federated system.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-rook53-18-219-112-111-42 in your application.