Lead Specialist, Program Manager

Pearson; Town of Poland (NY); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, is seeking a Program Manager for the AI Control Plane within the OCTO Office and the AI C4E team. You will drive delivery across engineering, security and legal, and own the enterprise AI telemetry dashboard to transform investment decisions into evidence-led outcomes.

Ideal candidates have 5+ years in tech programme management, product ownership for data products, and experience coordinating with hyperscalers or large system integrators.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of programme or project management in technology, with cross-functional reach across product, engineering, and operations.
• Product management or product-owner experience for technical or data products—someone who has shipped a v1 of something internal, not just managed a backlog.
• Vendor coordination experience with major enterprise technology partners (e.g. hyperscalers, large system integrators).
• Working understanding of AI, data engineering, or cloud architecture at a level sufficient to translate technical constraints into delivery plans and product decisions.

Responsibilities

• Translate AICP strategy into executable plans—workstreams, owners, milestones, dependencies—across Pearson business units and corporate functions including engineering, security, and legal.
• Run programme cadence and reporting: status, risks, decision logs, steering committees, working groups. Coordinate external delivery partners against contractual commitments and commercial terms.
• Drive business-unit adoption of the governance and security capabilities AICP delivers—discovery, risk tiering, monitoring—against ambitious year-end onboarding targets.
• Act as product owner for the enterprise AI telemetry dashboard: define personas and the questions they need answered, prioritise the backlog, and ship v1 covering an initial set of enterprise tools. Build prototypes and design mocks where it helps the engineering team move faster.

Job description

Drive the future of AI Transformation at Pearson as part of the AI Centre for Enablement team (AI C4E). Inspire innovation. Empower learning.

Pearson, the world's leading learning company, is hiring a Program Manager, AI Control Plane for our Office of Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) to join the AI Centre for Enablement (C4E) team.

Why This Role Matters:

The AI Control Plane (AICP) is Pearson's flagship investment in AI infrastructure: a multi-year programme that closes Pearson's AI governance gap, accelerates how teams ship AI value, and builds the strategic know-how to keep AI cost-effective as usage scales. It delivers enterprise-wide visibility into Pearson's AI estate—what is deployed, what it costs, where it creates value, and what we should do next. AICP sits inside OCTO's AI Centre for Enablement (C4E).

This is a deliberately blended role. Roughly 70% is technical programme management of a major cross-organisation investment, working across Pearson business units and corporate functions including engineering, security, and legal. Roughly 30% is product leadership for an internal 'data product'—the enterprise AI telemetry dashboard that turns Pearson's AI investment decisions from opinion-led to evidence-led. You will drive how that dashboard looks and how it gets built, working with a cross-functional engineering pod inside OCTO.

You run the day-to-day delivery of AICP—from architecture handoff through business-unit onboarding to global scale—and act as product owner for the enterprise AI telemetry dashboard. You free the engineering and architecture leads from coordination overhead so they can focus on what only they can do.

As a member of OCTO AI C4E and Pearson, you are expected to embody and role model our leadership dimensions.

Live Our Purpose:

You align your values, actions, and goals with Pearson's mission. You connect daily work to our broader purpose and make decisions that reflect a deep understanding of our strategy.

Simplify the Complexity:

You navigate ambiguity and distil complexity into clear, actionable plans. You help teams focus and execute in a dynamic environment.

Carry Our Culture:

You foster customer centricity, high performance, and strong collaboration. You lead with integrity and contribute to inclusive, high-performing teams.

Deliver Results:

You set ambitious goals and execute with quality, precision, and speed. You hold yourself accountable for outcomes and measurable impact for learners and stakeholders.

What You'll Do

• Translate AICP strategy into executable plans—workstreams, owners, milestones, dependencies—across Pearson business units and corporate functions including engineering, security, and legal.
• Run programme cadence and reporting: status, risks, decision logs, steering committees, working groups. Coordinate external delivery partners against contractual commitments and commercial terms.
• Drive business-unit adoption of the governance and security capabilities AICP delivers—discovery, risk tiering, monitoring—against ambitious year-end onboarding targets.
• Act as product owner for the enterprise AI telemetry dashboard: define personas and the questions they need answered, prioritise the backlog, and ship v1 covering an initial set of enterprise tools. Build prototypes and design mocks where it helps the engineering team move faster.

Who You Are:

• Customer-centric: you keep business-unit outcomes and leadership decisions—vendor outputs—as the success measure.
• Hands-on and AI-fluent: you mock up a dashboard, prototype with modern AI tools, and drive design decisions yourself rather than waiting for engineers to read your mind.
• Pragmatic and persistent: you create clarity where none exists and close follow-up loops before they become escalations.

What You Bring

• 5+ years of programme or project management in technology, with cross-functional reach across product, engineering, and operations.
• Product management or product-owner experience for technical or data products—someone who has shipped a v1 of something internal, not just managed a backlog.
• Vendor coordination experience with major enterprise technology partners (e.g. hyperscalers, large system integrators).
• Working understanding of AI, data engineering, or cloud architecture at a level sufficient to translate technical constraints into delivery plans and product decisions.

What You'll Gain

• Lead-PM/PdM role on a Board-visible AI infrastructure programme sponsored by OCTO leadership.
• Ownership of the enterprise AI telemetry product—Pearson's first enterprise view of "what AI is doing for us".
• Direct collaboration with engineering, security, and business-unit leaders across Pearson, and visibility across OCTO and the Chief Data & AI Office.

Why Pearson?

At Pearson, we don't just build careers—we accelerate them. This position provides visibility across the Office of the Chief Technology Officer and the AI C4E, with a clear path into broader technical and strategic roles.

We believe great work deserves great rewards. We offer competitive benefits designed to support the diverse needs of our people and their families. Explore our Benefits.

Who we are:

At Pearson, our purpose is simple: to help people realise 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. We value diversity and inclusion and encourage all qualified candidates to apply. Benefits and flexible working options are available per local Pearson policy.

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, colour, 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.

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