Managing Editor - Times of Blockchain

VAP Group; United Arab Emirates; Hybrid; AED 223,200 - 424,080; Full time

Job summary

VAP Group in Dubai is seeking an experienced Senior Editorial Manager to lead daily and weekly editorial operations, assigning stories across news, insights, guides, and other site verticals.

You will edit for accuracy, clarity, SEO, and house style, manage WordPress publishing workflows, and mentor staff writers and freelancers while coordinating with SEO, social media, and newsletters to maximize audience engagement and uphold brand standards.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of editorial experience in digital media.
• 1-2 years in story-assigning or team leadership.
• Strong copyediting and headline-writing with SEO focus.
• Experience managing multiple writers and deadlines.
• Hands-on CMS and analytics familiarity.

Responsibilities

• Manage daily and weekly editorial calendar across site verticals.
• Edit and copy-edit articles for accuracy, clarity, structure, SEO and house style.
• Coordinate real-time coverage of breaking news and time-sensitive developments.
• Manage the CMS publishing workflow (WordPress), including scheduling, categorization, tagging, and metadata quality control.
• Supervise, coach, and give regular feedback to staff writers, reporters, and freelance contributors; set output targets.
• Responsible for the comprehensive management and oversight of the Global Blockchain Show's event agenda www.globalblockchainshow.com
• Ensure clear labelling and separation of press releases, sponsored posts, and editorial content per the site's Editorial Policy.
• Liaise with the Chief Editor on story approvals for sensitive, legal-risk, or high-visibility pieces.
• Track content performance (traffic, engagement, rankings) and adjust assignment priorities and headlines/structure accordingly.
• Coordinate with SEO, social media, and newsletter teams to ensure timely distribution of published content.
• Maintain the contributor/freelancer pipeline, including onboarding, style-guide training, and invoice/payment coordination.

Skills

Editorial leadership

Copyediting & proofreading

SEO best practices

WordPress CMS

Analytics tools

Tools

WordPress

Google Analytics

Search Console

Yoast SEO

Rank Math

Job description

Location: Hybrid (Dubai)

Employment Type: Full-time

Key Responsibilities

• Manage the daily and weekly editorial calendar, assigning stories across news, insights, guides, and other site verticals.
• Edit and copy-edit articles for accuracy, clarity, structure, SEO, and adherence to house style before publication.
• Coordinate real-time coverage of breaking news and time-sensitive developments relevant to the vertical.
• Manage the CMS publishing workflow (WordPress), including scheduling, categorization, tagging, and featured image/metadata quality control.
• Supervise, coach, and give regular feedback to staff writers, reporters, and freelance contributors; set individual output targets.
• Responsible for the comprehensive management and oversight of the Global Blockchain Show's event agenda www.globalblockchainshow.com
• Ensure clear labelling and separation of press releases, sponsored posts, and editorial content per the site's Editorial Policy.
• Liaise with the Chief Editor on story approvals for sensitive, legal-risk, or high-visibility pieces.
• Track content performance (traffic, engagement, rankings) and adjust assignment priorities and headlines/structure accordingly.
• Coordinate with SEO, social media, and newsletter teams to ensure timely distribution of published content.
• Maintain the contributor/freelancer pipeline, including onboarding, style-guide training, and invoice/payment coordination.

Requirements

• 5+ years of editorial experience in digital media, with at least 1-2 years in a story-assigning or team-lead capacity.
• Strong copyediting and headline-writing skills, with an eye for SEO best practices.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple writers and competing deadlines in a fast-paced newsroom environment.
• Hands-on experience with WordPress or a comparable CMS, plus basic familiarity with analytics tools (Google Analytics, Search Console).
• Solid understanding of journalistic sourcing, fact-checking, and editorial ethics.
• Excellent organizational and communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Working knowledge of the specific subject matter covered by the site, sufficient to evaluate story pitches and technical accuracy.
• Experience managing a distributed team of freelance writers across time zones.
• Familiarity with structured data / SEO plugins (e.g., Yoast, Rank Math) and basic image-optimization workflows.
• Experience coordinating coverage around live events, product launches, or market-moving news.

Success Metrics / KPIs

• Publishing cadence: number of stories published on schedule vs. planned calendar.
• Content quality: error/correction rate, average edit turnaround time.
• Team output: writer productivity, freelancer retention, and quality consistency.
• Performance: pageviews, average engagement time, and search ranking movement on managed content.