Senior Program Manager, Higher Education Innovation

Cengage; Ohio; Hybrid; USD 117,000 - 187,000; Full time

Job summary

Cengage is seeking a Sr. Program Manager to lead multi-functional programs from planning through customer rollout across Higher Education disciplines.

The role emphasizes aligning priorities, dependencies, risks, and decisions while driving reusable capabilities and a clear roadmap for capabilities rollout. The position involves coordinating Product, Content, Engineering, Go-to-Market, and other teams, defining measurable outcomes, and communicating with senior stakeholders to ensure successful

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.
• Preferred PMP, PgMP, or similar certification.
• Proficiency with Jira, Confluence, or similar delivery tools.
• Experience managing vendors and third-party partners.

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 leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Executive communication

Matrixed organization

Vendor management

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Job description

Cengage is seeking a Sr. Program Manager to lead multi-functional programs from planning through customer rollout across Higher Education disciplines.

The role emphasizes aligning priorities, dependencies, risks, and decisions while driving reusable capabilities and a clear roadmap for capabilities rollout. The position involves coordinating Product, Content, Engineering, Go-to-Market, and other teams, defining measurable outcomes, and communicating with senior stakeholders to ensure successful