Principle, Program Manager

The Role

Pearson is reimagining how learning content is created and delivered in the age of AI. As part of that work, the Content Excellence team is driving a broad transformation agenda focused on building a faster, more scalable, and more future-ready content development model—combining modern product thinking, AI-enabled workflows, and strong content operations.

We are seeking a strategic program manager to work in close partnership with the Head of Content Excellence on one of the company’s most ambitious transformation efforts. The successful candidate will frame the agenda, structure ambiguous problems, develop options and tradeoffs, and drive alignment and decisions with senior stakeholders. S/he will also take ownership of select priorities, translating strategy into pragmatic action and measurable outcomes across content, product, and technology teams.

What You'll Own

In this role, you will work directly with the Head of Content Excellence to shape the transformation agenda—clarifying the “north star,” surfacing the highest-leverage opportunities, and sharpening strategic choices. You create and facilitate the governance, communication, and decision forums that keep priorities crisp, leaders aligned, and outcomes measurable.

You will have the opportunity to propose and lead initiatives within the broader transformation portfolio—from early diagnosis and problem definition through recommendation, decision, and delivery. This may include defining future-state ways of working, shaping operating model choices, building business cases and success metrics, and directly architecting and piloting AI-enabled processes.

You will play an enterprise-facing role: building trust with senior stakeholders and creating clear communication and alignment mechanisms across the 2000-strong content development workforce. You will help ensure the right conversations happen in the right forums—and that they result in crisp decisions, committed owners, and follow-through.

This role combines strategic problem-solving with pragmatic follow-through. You will be expected to bring structure to ambiguity, synthesize complex inputs into clear points of view, and communicate recommendations in executive-ready formats (e.g., decision memos, concise narratives, option/tradeoff framing).

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as a close thought partner to the Head of Content Excellence—framing the agenda, structuring ambiguous problems, and advancing high-stakes decisions.
• Develop executive-ready recommendations on strategy and operating questions (workflow transformation, AI enablement, capability building, change approach, and operating model design), including clear options and tradeoffs.
• Design and run communication, governance and decision forums that drive alignment and accountability across all functions involved in content development at Pearson.
• Produce and drive key strategic artifacts (decision memos, executive narratives, prioritization/roadmap framing, KPI & measurement approach, and investment cases) that enable faster, higher-quality decisions.
• Own selected initiatives end-to-end—from diagnosis through delivery and outcome—ensuring work is viable organizationally and produces measurable impact.
• Support the evaluation and application of AI tools and emerging practices to our work via hands-on experimentation (workflow pilots, prompt/tooling patterns), measuring impact, and scaling what works.
• Represent the Head of Content Excellence in meetings and stakeholder discussions; build alignment, resolve key dependencies, and move decisions forward.
• Bring appropriate rigor to execution where needed (clarifying ownership, surfacing risks and tradeoffs, and maintaining momentum) as an enabler of strategic outcomes—not as the center of the role.

About You

You are unusually strong for your career stage: sharp, credible, fast-learning, and comfortable operating in environments where the answers are not obvious and the stakes are high.

You likely come from consulting, corporate strategy, transformation, product operations, chief-of-staff, or a similarly demanding cross-functional environment—with credible exposure to content development workflows and the technologies that support them. You are not simply an organizer—you are someone who can form a point of view, structure tradeoffs, influence senior leaders, and translate strategy into focused, measurable execution.

You are strong interpersonally and know how to operate through influence rather than authority. You can represent leadership well, communicate with precision, and earn trust across different functions and levels. You are a linguistic bridge between technical engineering teams and non-technical business unit leaders, capable of translating AI capabilities into tangible content P&L improvements. You are comfortable navigating ambiguity, but you do not let ambiguity slow you down. Instead, you create clarity, forward motion, and better decisions.

You are deeply curious about AI—and you’ve also applied that curiosity in practice. You have hands-on experience using AI tools to improve real workflows (not just talking about them), and you can translate between content experts, product/engineering teams, and business stakeholders. You are comfortable discussing how content is structured and managed (e.g., metadata, tagging, and transformation) and how those foundations enable automation and scale.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience in strategy, consulting, transformation, business operations, product operations or a similarly cross-functional role that required shaping decisions and influencing senior stakeholders.
• Experience in educational publishing, content development, learning products, or adjacent industries.
• Demonstrated, hands-on experience applying AI (e.g., generative AI tools) to improve workflows—such as piloting new approaches, evaluating tools, and measuring impact.
• Working knowledge of content development and content operations, including how structured content, metadata/tagging, and tooling enable reuse, automation, and scale.
• Strong problem-solving skills and structured thinking, with the ability to develop clear, practical recommendations on complex issues.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience preparing concise, executive-ready materials.
• Demonstrated ability to influence stakeholders and drive progress in matrixed environments without relying on formal authority.
• Proven capacity to take ownership of complex work and move it forward with limited oversight.
• Strong judgment, learning agility, and comfort operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.

Preferred

• Experience supporting enterprise transformation, workflow redesign, operating model change, or organizational change efforts.
• Demonstrated curiosity about AI tools and emerging technologies, with a practical mindset about experimentation and adoption.
• Product management (or strong product mindset) experience—defining user problems, writing requirements, prioritizing backlogs, and partnering with engineering to ship improvements.
• A “spike” in data/analytics or data science—comfortable working with structured data, instrumentation/measurement, and using data to improve content workflows (e.g., metadata quality, tagging, transformation pipelines).
• Familiarity with large, distributed organizations and the realities of driving change across multiple teams and leaders.

What You'll Get

This is a rare opportunity to work closely with a senior transformation leader, help shape a high-profile enterprise agenda, and take real ownership of work that matters. The role offers broad exposure, meaningful responsibility, and the chance to build an unusually strong foundation in strategy, transformation, and AI-enabled operating model change.

For the right person, it is a role with disproportionate growth, visibility, and impact.

This is a hybrid work setup, where the candidate will be required to work three days onsite at our Hoboken office.

Applications will be accepted through May 2. This window may be extended depending on business needs.

Compensation at Pearson is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and specific location. As required by the California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York State, New York City, Vermont, Washington State, and Washington DC laws, the pay range for this position is as follows:

The full-time salary range for this role is between $160,000 - $185,000

This position is eligible to participate in an annual incentive program

Who we are:

At Pearson, our purpose is simple: to help people realize the life they imagine through learning. We believe that every learning opportunity is a chance for a personal breakthrough. We are the world's lifelong learning company. For us, learning isn't just what we do. It's who we are. To learn more: We are Pearson.

Pearson is an Equal Opportunity Employer and a member of E-Verify. Employment decisions are based on qualifications, merit and business need. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status or any other group protected by law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

If you are an individual with a disability and are unable or limited in your ability to use or access our career site as a result of your disability, you may request reasonable accommodations by emailing TalentExperienceGlobalTeam@grp.pearson.com.

Job: Product Management Job Family: PRODUCT Organization: Direct to Consumer Schedule: FULL_TIME Workplace Type: Req ID: 23868 #location