Director, Product Development

Columbus, OH, United States

Director of Product Development, Early Childhood Education

Department: Early Childhood

Reports To: GM, Early Childhood

Position Summary:

Highlights for Children, a global brand publishing content that fosters joyful learning, has ambitious plans to expand its offerings into early childhood education settings. Our curriculum solutions will meet the needs of early childhood educators by centering the play-based learning, cognitive development, and social emotional skills that are hallmarks of the Highlights approach.

The Director of Product Development will increase the velocity of our portfolio expansion by bringing simple, cohesive, and customer-focused products to life with speed and agility. This includes accountability for end-to-end development and revision of multi-component curriculum products and multiple products at once. This experienced product development leader will be a catalyst with the mindset and experience to activate and grow talent, develop an inclusive team climate, inspire fresh thinking and reasonable risk taking, and mobilize a productive network of internal and external resources.

This role reports to the General Manager for Early Childhood Education (ECE), is an integral member of the ECE leadership team, and works closely with the Program Manager, Director of Marketing, and Director of Product Management.

You will build relationships across the Highlights enterprise -especially Editorial, Production, Digital Asset Management, Procurement, Creative, and Digital Product teams-to establish and apply best practices in editorial, composition, design, and production across delivery formats. You will be accountable for the development and delivery of intuitive, cohesive solutions - core, supplemental, libraries, print, digital, hybrid - that meet the needs and reflect the realities of early childhood centers.

In this role, you will be expected to:

Lead end-to-end product development and revision aligned to portfolio strategy: Activate a team of internal and external resources to create products that meet the specifications of the business cases, align to customer needs, support research-based instructional practices, and exemplify a joyful and practical approach to early learning.

Apply your understanding of classrooms and teachers to strive for intuitive solutions that integrate easily into the realities of the early childhood setting.

Propose, implement, and manage workflows and guidelines that prioritize speed to market while bridging industry and cross-functional (Consumer and Education) best practices.

Proactively plan, source, and manage capacity using external partners, vendors, authors, organizations, and freelance contributors. Write product briefs, issue RFPs for product development, develop rubric for vendor selection, contract with vendors, negotiate solutions, manage budget, scope, and timelines.

Coordinate ongoing field testing and prototyping process to ensure programs benefit from user insights. Synthesize and prioritize inputs to inform product decisions while maintaining budget, timeline, and resource allocations.

Drive development of content, resources, and connections to attract and engage customers: Oversee the creation of value-added content - including bonus lessons, graphic organizers, infographics, downloadable content - that drive engagement of existing customers (portal users) and affinity of potential customers. Collaborate with marketing to align development with market priorities.

Lead the creation of resources that build the credibility, market-viability, and usability of our offerings, including research briefs, standards correlations, foundational white papers.

Engage across the enterprise to ensure ECE products include opportunities to build awareness and engagement among parents of preschoolers using our products. Engage in enterprise-wide initiatives to build parent community.

Facilitate development of content-rich conference proposals and session content (slides and talking points) and select and prepare presenters for conference sessions that position Highlights as a thought leader in early childhood education.

Contribute your product knowledge and pedagogical expertise to applications for grants, RFPs, state approval processes. Familiarize your team with RFP and grant requirements as insights to inform product development decisions.

Activate a high-performing team and build collaborative relationships: Lead a team of editorial and production professionals, ensuring role clarity, accountability, and ongoing development plans to nurture a high-performing team.

Continually refine talent strategy to meet the needs of current and future priorities, articulate a scalable talent structure, and balance internal and external resources to leverage flexible capacity options.

Establish productive partnerships internally and externally. Communicate decisions, plans, context, and progress in ways that support the work across teams and shows how the team's work aligns to enterprise priorities and ECE strategy.

Build relationships to activate shared resources across Consumer, Education, and Highlights Corporate groups to support ECE efforts with thoughtful planning, shared understanding, and clear expectations.

DIRECTOR EXPECTATIONS: Individuals in director level roles at Highlights are expected to exemplify and model our leadership competencies: foster alignment, grow self and others, create results, champion change, and demonstrate positive impact. In addition to your role expertise, you will contribute to enterprise-wide initiatives that drive leadership development, continuous improvement, and innovation.

Within the first month, you will:

Receive a very warm Highlights welcome!

Start to build relationships on your immediate team, with cross functional collaborators, and among others across the enterprise.

Conduct a listening tour where you build role empathy and understanding of context, priorities, and roles and have the chance to ask thought-provoking questions.

Build understanding of your team and lead them in moving products currently in development forward to meet timeline and budget imperatives.

Develop partnerships with Director of Product Management, Director of Marketing, and Program Manager to establish ways of working and set the stage for authentic collaboration.

Within 60 days, you will:

Provide input into the multi-year product / portfolio roadmap, giving attention to products at every stage of lifecycle.

Propose, implement, and manage workflows that bridge industry, consumer, and education best practices.

Spot dependencies and make tradeoffs in product development plans to accelerate speed to market and unlock capacity.

Within the first 90 days, you will:

Supervise and empower a network of internal and external editors, vendors, and developers; oversee the project plans and daily execution that go into producing high-quality products.

Communicate decisions, plans, and progress in ways that support the work across teams and shows how the team's work aligns to the strategy. Anticipate risks, make tradeoffs, and focus on business priorities.

Supervisory Responsibilities: The individual in this role will directly manage a team of editorial and production resources with accountability for the delivery of ECE products. The role also requires the ability to assemble, activate, and manage a broad network of external resources - agencies, vendors, freelancers - to contribute to the work.

Qualifications:

Degree in education, business, or related field with 7-10 years of relevant experience.

Proven ability in planning, producing, and delivering winning multi-component educational products across the portfolio.

Demonstrated success building and leading a high-performing team.

Experience managing external partners, collaborating with stakeholders, and working with customers.

Exceptional professional judgment, reliability, and high drive for results.

Ability to thrive in a role that requires fostering alignment and ongoing commitment among stakeholders with diverse approaches and priorities.

This position is remote with 25% travel for in-person meetings and attendance at trade shows.

Physical Requirements:

Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.

Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

If you do not meet every requirement listed, we encourage you to apply anyway. Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every qualification. We are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you are drawn to this role and your past experiences do not align perfectly to the job description, we encourage you to apply.

Reasonable Accommodation Notice: Federal law requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities. Please tell us if you require reasonable accommodations to apply for a job or to perform your job. Examples of reasonable accommodation include making a change to the application process or work procedures, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.

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