Product Manager (Sales)

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 1400 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. and in the U.K.

 

Ascend Learning is seeking a passionate Product Manager with shared services experience to lead an eCommerce product portfolio of services and platforms that serve all Ascend Learning brands.  This is a growing team.  You will eventually lead a team of product owners and platform analysts while also driving initiatives from concept through implementation performing the Product Owner responsibilities as needed. 

This is a strategic role responsible for building relationships and working collaboratively with stakeholders, business partners, product management peers, and development teams to ensure the final product aligns with both the business vision and the enterprise shared services vision. 

 

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for product launch operations, ongoing enhancements, and driving best in class customer and employee experience
• Lead and coach a team of product owners and platform analysts who create product requirements and documentation to support road-map execution
• Guide OKR goals for continually improving our speed to market, quality, and delivered value.
• Develop roadmaps in collaboration with technology and business partners considering the enterprise shared services vision, each business vision, market trends, and vendor roadmaps.
• Perform the role of Product Owner as needed to support team including collaborate with and motivate a cross-functional team of designers, developers, testers and others to develop, execute, and release in alignment with product roadmaps.
• Serve as liaison between business teams and development teams, representing and advocating for the perspective of the other party.
• Drive the creation of holistic, initiative/epic-level product requirements.
• Actively support design and prototype work. Solicit user and other stakeholder feedback on concepts and prototypes.
• Assist with initiative/epic level launch plans related to schedule, scope and resources.
• Work with the stakeholders to develop metrics to manage and track benefits, adoption and risks to operations.
• Drive ongoing improvements and efficiencies in product health, operational practices, tools and processes.
• Own vendor management from vendor selection through ensuring successful long-term partnerships.

 

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent industry experience.
• Required 4+ years of demonstrated success in a product management, product development, marketing, or similar role.
• People management experience, preferred
• Proven success gaining a deep understanding of stakeholder and user experience to improve stakeholder satisfaction.
• Experience working with shared services software development teams, preferably in a scaled agile framework (SAFe) environment.
• Experience in eCommerce and Marketing Automation experience (e.g. SiteFinity, Magento, HubSpot)
• Experience writing business cases and/or features for both services and UI-based platforms using product management and development tracking tools (e.g. Jira, Jira Align).
• Certified Scrum Product Owner® or Certified SAFe® Product Owner / Product Manager, preferred.

 

Skills and Abilities:

• Problem Solver: Uses rigorous logic or methods to solve difficult problems with effective solutions; probes all fruitful sources for answers; can see hidden problems; is excellent at honest analysis; looks beyond the obvious and doesn't stop at the first answers.
• Decisive: Makes sound decisions based on a mixture of analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgment; most of his/her solutions and suggestions turn out to be correct and accurate when judged over time; sought out by others for advice and solutions.
• Proactive: Doesn't wait for direction to act; understands what needs to be done; seeks out new projects, is able to spot inefficiencies and suggest improvements.
• Adaptable: Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the complete picture.
• Resourceful: Can marshal resources (people, funding, material, support) to get things done; can orchestrate multiple activities at once to achieve a goal better and faster.

 

 

Candidates should be aware that Ascend Learning currently maintains a policy requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated. Newly hired employees must be fully vaccinated by their start date.  Ascend Learning is an equal opportunity employer and will provide a reasonable accommodation to those unable to be vaccinated where it is not an undue hardship to the Company to do so as provided under federal, state, and local law. Exceptions to the vaccine requirement may apply for employees living or working in Montana.

 

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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