Lead, Product Management

Lead, Product Management, ELL Institutional Courseware

This role aligns to industry-level titles such as Head of Product, Director of
Product Management, Product Portfolio Director, or similar product leadership
positions with responsibility for portfolio strategy, commercial performance,
and team leadership.

Role Overview 

The Lead, Product Management, ELL Institutional Courseware owns Pearson’s global
portfolio of English language learning materials for schools, higher education
and adult education. The portfolio spans print, blended and digital courseware,
supplementary materials, teacher professional development, and partner-created
content. 

This is an opportunity to shape the future of a major global education
portfolio. The role will decide where Pearson invests, grows, localises,
simplifies and exits, with accountability for creating products that teachers
choose, improve student learning outcomes, and deliver sustainable revenue
growth and strong returns. 

A central part of the mandate is leading the evolution of a print-heavy
portfolio towards connected, digital and AI-enabled learning experiences.
Pearson intends to lead this transition while staying grounded in the needs and
readiness of teachers and institutions. 

The role owns the full product lifecycle, from customer discovery and portfolio
strategy through development, launch, performance management and retirement. It
owns investment cases for approval by the ELL Leadership Team, recommends
pricing and packaging, and drives initiatives to improve revenue and
profitability. 

The role leads a global team of approximately 15 colleagues through managers and
works across Content, Learning Science, Engineering, Assessment, UX and AI. It
is a member of the ELL Product Leadership Team and ELL Content Leadership Team,
acting as the senior product owner for institutional courseware and aligning
Product, Content, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Finance around a clear
portfolio direction. 

Key Responsibilities 

Set the Portfolio Strategy 

* Define and execute the global strategy and roadmap for institutional
courseware, based on customer needs, market opportunities, learning outcomes,
and commercial performance.
* Manage portfolio investments, prioritisation, localisation, innovation, and
product lifecycle decisions.
* Act as the senior product authority, providing strategic recommendations to
the ELL Leadership Team.

Understand Customers and Markets 

* Build deep understanding of learners, educators, institutions, ministries,
and partners across priority markets.
* Use customer insight, market trends, learning evidence, and performance data
to drive product and investment decisions.
* Support strategic customer and ministry engagements alongside Sales teams.

Create Market-Winning Courseware 

* Translate strategy into compelling value propositions, product roadmaps, and
requirements.
* Lead cross-functional teams to deliver high-impact learning solutions that
balance customer value, learning effectiveness, quality, speed, and
commercial outcomes.
* Validate opportunities through customer research, pilots, and data-driven
decision-making.

Lead the AI and Digital Transition 

* Drive the evolution from print-first products to digital, blended, and
AI-enabled learning experiences.
* Identify and scale responsible AI opportunities that enhance learning,
teaching, accessibility, and product efficiency.
* Ensure AI-enabled products meet standards for transparency, safety, privacy,
accessibility, and intellectual property compliance.

Drive Growth and Investment Return 

* Develop business cases, pricing strategies, and investment recommendations
for new and existing products.
* Partner with Sales, Finance, and Revenue Operations to achieve customer,
learning, revenue, profitability, and ROI objectives.
* Take decisive action to optimise, reposition, or retire underperforming
products.

Measure Learning and Product Performance 

* Establish and monitor success metrics across learning outcomes, adoption,
engagement, satisfaction, retention, revenue, and profitability.
* Use evidence and performance data to continuously improve portfolio
effectiveness.

Lead the Team and Organisation 

* Lead and develop a global team of approximately 15 product professionals.
* Foster excellence in product management, customer discovery, strategy,
commercial thinking, and AI-enabled product development.
* Build a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, and customer
focus.

Expected Results 

* A clear global portfolio strategy and roadmap, understood across ELL. 
* Sustainable revenue growth, improved profitability and stronger returns from
courseware investment. 
* A simpler, more intentional portfolio with clear investment and retirement
choices. 
* Global products that combine scale with effective localisation. 
* A credible transition towards digital and AI-enabled courseware that
customers can adopt successfully. 
* Measurable improvements in student learning outcomes, teacher effectiveness
and customer value. 
* Trusted relationships with major institutions, ministries, distributors and
partners. 
* Strong alignment across Product, Content, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service,
Finance and Technology. 
* A high-performing global product management team with strong managers and
clear accountability. 

Experience 

* Relevant experience in product management, portfolio leadership, general
management or a related field, including experience leading multiple teams or
managing managers. 
* Proven success setting strategy and making investment choices across a
complex portfolio of products, markets or customer segments. 
* A track record of turning customer insight into differentiated products and
successful commercial outcomes. 
* Experience owning business cases and managing performance against revenue,
profitability, customer and return expectations. 
* Strong judgement across investment, prioritisation, pricing, packaging and
portfolio rationalisation. 
* Experience leading cross-functional product development in a global, matrixed
organisation. 
* Experience building product teams and developing product leaders. 
* Experience in education, publishing, courseware, EdTech or learning products
is strongly preferred. 
* Experience applying AI, data or emerging technology to products is
preferred. 
* No specific degree is required. Relevant experience and demonstrated outcomes
are valued. 

Skills, Leadership & Capabilities

* Strong commercial and strategic acumen, with the ability to balance customer
and learning outcomes with revenue, profitability, risk, and return.
* Proven expertise in product strategy, portfolio management, customer
discovery, roadmap development, and stakeholder engagement.
* Data- and evidence-led decision maker, using customer insight, learning
science, analytics, and sound judgement to shape investment and product
decisions.
* Strong leadership capabilities, with experience leading global teams,
influencing senior stakeholders, and creating a culture of accountability,
collaboration, and continuous improvement.
* Customer- and learner-focused, with the ability to make clear decisions in
complex and ambiguous environments.
* Practical understanding of AI and machine learning concepts, including prompt
engineering and the application of AI to products, workflows, and
decision-making. Hands-on model development expertise is not required.

 

Location & Work Set Up

This is a full-time hybrid role based in the UK, Spain or Poland, with regular
collaboration from a local Pearson office.