Senior Program Manager: Cross-Discipline Delivery

Cengage Group; Ohio; On-site; USD 117,000 - 187,000; Full time

Job summary

Cengage Group is seeking a Senior Program Manager to lead cross‑discipline initiatives across product strategy, content, technology, and commercial teams in support of Higher Education customers. You will align priorities, dependencies, and roadmaps, coordinating complex programs from planning through customer rollout.

The role emphasizes establishing governance, scalable operating models, and measurable outcomes while partnering with Product, Content, Engineering, and Go‑to‑Market teams to

Qualifications

• Experience leading complex programs across product strategy, content, technology, and commercial teams.
• Experience establishing operating models, governance, planning processes, and decision frameworks for complex multi-functional initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to translate strategy into coordinated portfolios, roadmaps, workstreams, and measurable outcomes.
• Ability to identify patterns and common needs across multiple initiatives and drive alignment around shared capabilities and reusable solutions.
• Strong relationship-building and partner management skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across functions and levels of the organization.
• Strong executive communication skills, including the ability to synthesize complex information, frame tradeoffs, and facilitate decisions among senior stakeholders.
• Experience operating in a matrixed organization where authority is distributed across multiple teams and leaders.
• Strong facilitation, problem-solving, and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.

Responsibilities

• Maintain a portfolio view across disciplines, connecting priorities, opportunities, capability needs, and planned work to create visibility and alignment across groups.
• Identify common capability needs across subjects and disciplines, surface opportunities for reuse, and coordinate prioritization and sequencing to support shared capabilities and aligned roadmaps.
• Define and track objectives and measurable outcomes, connecting program progress to business and customer impact.
• Identify and manage dependencies, risks, and unresolved questions across disciplines and workstreams, ensuring they are visible and driven to resolution.
• Surface decisions and tradeoffs, bring together the right stakeholders and information, and drive alignment on a path forward.
• Coordinate Product, Content, Engineering, Go-to-Market, and other teams through delivery, launch, and adoption of new capabilities.
• Facilitate communication and collaboration across teams to remove blockers and drive execution.
• Ensure work is prioritized, well-defined, and aligned with strategic priorities and business goals.

Skills

Program management

Portfolio management

Cross-functional leadership

Strategic planning

Executive communication

Vendor management

Matrixed organization

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Job description

Cengage Group is seeking a Senior Program Manager to lead cross‑discipline initiatives across product strategy, content, technology, and commercial teams in support of Higher Education customers. You will align priorities, dependencies, and roadmaps, coordinating complex programs from planning through customer rollout.

The role emphasizes establishing governance, scalable operating models, and measurable outcomes while partnering with Product, Content, Engineering, and Go‑to‑Market teams to