Senior Program Manager – Higher Education Initiatives

Cengage Group; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 117,000 - 187,000; Full time

Job summary

Cengage Group is seeking a Sr. Program Manager to coordinate multi-functional programs across Higher Education disciplines, aligning priorities and capabilities from planning through rollout.

This high-visibility role builds repeatable planning processes, manages dependencies and risks, and drives measurable business outcomes across Product, Content, Engineering, and Go-to-Market teams.

Qualifications

• Experience leading complex programs across product strategy, content, tech, and commercial teams.
• Ability to translate strategy into coordinated portfolios, roadmaps and measurable outcomes.
• Proven governance, planning processes and decision frameworks for multi-functional initiatives.
• Identify patterns and drive alignment around shared capabilities and reusable solutions.
• Strong relationship-building and partner management across functions and levels.
• Executive-level communication to synthesize complex information and facilitate decisions.

Responsibilities

• Maintain a portfolio view across disciplines, linking priorities and planned work for visibility.
• Identify common capability needs, surface reuse opportunities, and align roadmaps.
• Define and track objectives, connecting progress to business impact.
• Identify dependencies and risks, keep them visible and driven to resolution.
• Surface decisions and tradeoffs, align stakeholders on the path forward.
• Coordinate Product, Content, Engineering, GTM and other teams through delivery and adoption.
• Facilitate communication across teams to remove blockers and drive execution.
• Ensure work is prioritized, well-defined, and aligned with strategic goals.

Skills

Program management

Portfolio leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Executive communication

Governance & operating models

Resource & risk management

Matrixed organizations

Stakeholder alignment

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Job description

Cengage Group is seeking a Sr. Program Manager to coordinate multi-functional programs across Higher Education disciplines, aligning priorities and capabilities from planning through rollout.

This high-visibility role builds repeatable planning processes, manages dependencies and risks, and drives measurable business outcomes across Product, Content, Engineering, and Go-to-Market teams.