We are looking for a process design leader who can architect a lightweight, collaboratively-built operating playbook for a complex Product organization. The bar is high in two directions at once: enough rigor to stop the patterns that erode delivery today, and enough restraint to avoid smothering the people doing the work with overhead. You will own and standardize the core processes that govern how Product plans, builds, and ships — but you will design them with business unit partners, not for them. You will also continuously scan the organization to spot where new process infrastructure is needed (and equally, where existing process should be retired or simplified).
The right person for this role has spent a career proving that great process is a force multiplier — not bureaucracy — and has the instinct to feel the line between too much process and too little, and to stay on the right side of it.
Planning & Roadmapping
Co-design and steward the cross-functional planning calendar for the Product organization — coordinating annual planning cycles, aligned artifacts, delivery expectations, and planned moments of alignment with Sales and GTM. The calendar that actually gets used is the one the people running it helped shape; you build it with Suite Leads, the Resource Allocation team, and GTM partners — not in a vacuum.
Resolve the misalignment that exists today — inconsistent work planning methodologies across suites, mismatched planning timeframes (platform, digital product, and suites all on different cadences), lack of backward planning for cross-team dependencies, and rolling release cycles out of sync with the school year — by introducing the lightest framework that genuinely solves the problem.
Maintain dynamic business unit and cross-product roadmaps and ensure alignment across all other planning functions, building shared visibility into where the portfolio is headed and how dependencies fit together.
End-to-End Launch Planning & Related Processes
Design the standardized end-to-end launch process across business units — including launch readiness checklists, health checks, cross-stakeholder touchpoints, release documentation, and clean flow of data from product to supply chain.
Co-develop the launch playbook with Go-To-Market, Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, and Supply Chain — building it with the functions executing against it, not imposing it on them. The teams who run launches today have hard-won knowledge; your job is to surface and codify it, not overwrite it.
Codify ready-to-launch protocols that ensure pricing is finalized, manufacturing and distribution are confirmed, market collateral is approved, and Sales and CX teams are fully enabled — every time, regardless of which suite is launching, and without adding meaningful overhead to the teams doing the work.
Stage Gates & Decision Frameworks
Steward and continuously evolve the five-gate stage gate process that the organization is currently rolling out — including the differentiated tracks (e.g., new programs, new markets, in-market management) so that gating is right-sized to the investment and not a one-size-fits-all forcing function.
Qualification
A Lightweight-First Process DesignerA Co-CreatorA Gap-SpotterAn Operator’s OperatorA Continuous ImproverAn Expert Navigator
Required
A Lightweight-First Process Designer: Your instinct is always toward the lightest framework that solves the problem. You see overhead as a tax on delivery, and you have the judgment to know when more process is the answer and when it isn’t. You can feel the line between too much and too little process — and you stay on the right side of it.
A Co-Creator, Not an Imposer: You build process with the people who will live with it. You start every engagement with deep listening — to suite leaders, PMs, designers, content leads — and you ship frameworks that feel like extensions of how teams already work, not corrections imposed from above.
A Gap-Spotter: You actively scan the organization for places where process infrastructure could unlock impact — and equally for places where existing process should be simplified or retired. You triage thoughtfully: not every gap needs a framework, and not every framework is worth keeping.
An Operator’s Operator: You have run real launches, real planning cycles, and real stage gates — and you bring that experiential credibility to every conversation with suite leaders. You know what overhead feels like from the receiving end, which is why you’re so careful not to create more of it.
A Continuous Improver: You see every pilot as a learning opportunity, every miss as a signal, and every win as a stepping stone. You instrument your work and let the data — and the people doing the work — guide refinement.
An Expert Navigator: You know how to build influence across a matrixed organization to get things done without formal authority. You are the person leaders trust to make a fair call when process and urgency are in tension.
8+ years of progressive experience in business operations, program management, process design, or product operations leadership — ideally in technology, education, media, publishing, or another product- and content-driven business.
Demonstrated track record of building lightweight, well-adopted process: frameworks that teams actually use rather than binders that gather dust. Bonus points if you can point to a process you deliberately simplified or retired.
Proven experience designing and rolling out core operating processes at scale — stage gates, planning cadences, launch readiness frameworks, scope change governance, or analogous frameworks in complex, multi-product organizations.
Strong bias toward partnership and co-creation: you have designed and rolled out processes by listening first, prototyping with operators, and iterating publicly. You don’t ship V1 from a corner office.
Track record of leading cross-functional product launches end-to-end — including the GTM, Sales, CX, Marketing, and Supply Chain coordination that turn a “ready to ship” product into a successful one in market.
People management experience — you have built and led teams of process designers, program managers, or business operators, and you’ve grown talent in those roles.
