Program Manager - CEP

Discovery Education is looking for a Program Manager to join our Corporate Education Partnerships (CEP) team. You will lead a portfolio of partner program deliverables, working closely with the Partner Impact team, CEP clients and internal product teams including production, creative, curriculum, engineering, marketing and research. In this role, you will oversee and be accountable for the execution of contracted deliverables, CEP product roadmap initiatives, project budgets, program quality, and matrixed timelines to ensure on-time delivery. You will collaborate daily with partner-facing leads on the Partner Impact team and product leads to understand and drive positive project outcomes. You will help support our ability to exceed our CEP partners’ expectations. In addition to your portfolio of partner programs, you will also work to support and improve the Corporate Education Partnership’s products like Career Connect and the coalitions. It is critical to have a multi-dimensional skill set that will enable you to thrive working within a shared investment model at the highest of levels.
You have a reputation for flawless program leadership in a highly matrixed environment, including the ability to navigate C-suite level engagements with a fanatical level of discipline and attention to detail. Your background in complex EdTech program management spans multiple disciplines, resulting in your ability to proactively plan, trouble-shoot, problem-solve and strategically guide teams in the build and on-time delivery of highly successful initiatives with measurable outcomes. Your career trajectory reflects the ability to work with a high degree of autonomy and increasing levels of responsibility over time. Because you operate with a growth mindset, you can speak to the process improvements you’ve led throughout your career and possess stellar written and verbal communication skills with the ability to effectively engage all levels of clients and internal management in your work. You also work with a high degree of urgency and inspire your colleagues in the pursuit of shared objectives.
Requirements

• Effective Leadership – the ability to communicate effectively with others to accomplish tasks, the ability to lead teams directly and indirectly to collaboratively deliver results and be respected by colleagues, the ability to lead teams both in terms of strategy and operations to get projects complete on time and of the highest quality.
• Communication – very strong speaking and writing skills and responsible for communicating frequently in email, on the phone, and in person with various teams to ensure projects are on time, at or under budget, and are of the highest quality. The key to effective communication is being able to comprehend project deliverables, identify dependencies across projects, collaborative discussion and be able to communicate in a clear and succinct way ensuring that all others understand what needs to be accomplished. The ability to establish a fluid cadence of communications that ensures all parties are always up-to-speed with the information needed about the project is crucial.
• Time Management – ability to prioritize in a fluid manner throughout the day and week to ensure all details of the project are on time and on or under budget, assist in the development and oversight for project deliver schedules in Asana and the daily and weekly review of these schedules. Successful time management includes making sure the most important tasks are accomplished in a timely fashion. This also requires agenda setting, managing meeting time, taking notes, and clarifying meeting objectives and keeping others on task.
• Risk Management – insight to proactively identify critical path elements and flag potential schedule conflicts to resolve in advance to allow the project to stay on time and at or under budget. Risk management includes identifying what could potentially go wrong and providing quality options for solutions to prevent risks and mitigate effectively for risks when something does go wrong.
• Proactive Planning – skill at developing a plan that identifies and organizes all the detailed tasks in the right order that need to be completed in order for the project to be completed on time, at or under budget, and be of the highest quality. Scheduling and monitoring progress are keys to proactive planning. This area includes resource planning, scheduling, writing project plans, dependencies, understanding efficiency strategies, and always looking into the future to ensure the project stays on track.
• Negotiation – a stellar project manager is responsible for proactively bringing people together to accomplish a project, so the ability to listen, pull together individuals with various perspectives, and ensure all involved are on the same page and moving forward efficiently is a critical skill. Must be able to consistently demonstrate strong problem solving skills to work through complex challenges.
• Passionate about Discovery Education's vision to transform teaching and learning; experience working in ed-tech industry with multi-language proficiency preferred.
• At least 6-8 years in a related role in which flawless project management skills were non-negotiable in your work.
• Ability to work with high degree of autonomy to fluidly manage multiple projects with multiple partners, often with competing deadlines and interdependent workstreams.
• Organizational skills that enable you to strategically guide delivery and implementation procedures from our immersive product portfolio.
• Understanding the education marketplace and ability to identify and articulate key industry issues and how they may impact our work.
• Stellar problem-solving skills with a track record of managing complex conversations in a highly matrixed environment.
• Bachelor’s Degree required in business, marketing, communications, or another related field. Advanced degree’s preferred or equivalent work experience.
• Standard project management skills as noted above. PMP or other Project Management certification or previous work experience requiring PMP skills is a plus.
• Excellent, client-ready written and oral communication as well as strong interpersonal skills and the ability to collaborate effectively both internally and externally.
• The ability to do what needs to be done without being micromanaged. • Ability to work as part of a team in a fast-paced, high-energy environment.
• Proficiency in Asana or other similar project management software and proficiency in Microsoft Outlook and Office Suite.
• Candidates must be willing to participate in a high volume of client meetings, primarily on zoom, and travel 5% of the time to meet with partners, customers, or internal meetings.
• Legal right to work in the United States.

Benefits

We are proud to offer employees and their families a comprehensive benefits package:

• Medical-Dental-Vision
• Health Care Dependent Care
• Short & Long Term Disability
• Summer Hours
• Life Insurance
• 401(k)
• FSA/HSA
• Paid Time Off
• Volunteer Time
• Employee Assistance Program
• 7 Paid Holidays Annual Winter Holiday Break (Typically the last week of December)

Discovery Education is an equal opportunity employer. Discovery Education is committed to being an employer of choice, not just a good place to work, but a great and inclusive place to work. To that end, we strive to recruit and maintain a workforce that meaningfully represents the diverse and culturally rich communities that we serve. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or disabled status or, genetic information.