Position: Director, Publishing and Platform Partnerships
Location: Remote
Category: Full time Exempt
Reports to: VP, Content
Direct Reports: Publisher & Platform Team of 4-6 staff with a wide variety of tasks
About Benetech
Benetech believes that equitable access to education is a human right. Our technology and services break down systemic barriers and empower all learners regardless of ability. Around the world, we partner with local communities to expand inclusive and equitable education opportunities. To date we have delivered more than 20 million accessible books helping over 1.5 million students, jobseekers, and adults to read, learn, and pursue their dreams. People at Benetech believe strongly in the mission, and we work hard to embody our Truths each day.
Attracting candidates from all backgrounds
Our Benetech team reflects the diversity of the people we impact. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, including members of historically marginalized or oppressed communities because it makes our organization stronger. Research shows that individuals only apply to jobs if they meet all of the qualifications. We know there are great candidates who might not check all of the boxes and possess important skills we haven’t thought of. If that’s you, apply and tell us about yourself.
The Opportunity
This position will report to the VP of Content and have a significant impact on Benetech’s ability to serve the needs of our global membership community. The Director of Publisher and Platform Partnerships will lead a dynamic group of staff, be involved in key decisions and activities, and participate in implementing Benetech’s growing list of services to help drive Benetech forward.
The right candidate will be able to apply their mix of technical and account management skills in a fast-paced environment, as Benetech reshapes the way readers and learners interact with content they want and need in order to be successful in their studies and throughout their lives.
Key Responsibilities
- Management: Lead Publisher and Platform team of 4-6 direct reports.
- Business/collection development: Pursue potential publisher donating partners, negotiate and close agreements, onboard, educate, and act as knowledge resource for donating publishers, own and continually maintain effective relationships with donating publishers, including periodic check ins with key partners. Oversee resolution of file and upload issues. Troubleshoot and guide team on troubleshooting problems. Point of escalation for publisher-related issues. Surface and address gaps in collection. Report on and analyze content data on key measures.
- Support GCA service suite: Lead P&P contributions to GCA efforts, including providing and analyzing relevant data and Increasing awareness of GCA and Benetech Tool opportunities throughout the education and publishing industries. Also manage staff who provide back-end support for GCA processes
- Represent Benetech at industry conferences: Attend, and occasionally present, at industry conferences such as London Book Fair, Frankfurt Book Fair, and the American Library Association.
- Contract specialist: Lead contract negotiations and reviews of publisher donation agreements, vendor agreements, and other partner contracts in consultation with Benetech counsel as required.
- Primary contact and relationship owner for Bookshare Platform Licensees: Director-level liaison and point of escalation for BPLs. Run regular meetings and check ins. Direct P&P staff to handle regular client communication and issues. Collaborate when necessary, with CS and/or Engineering. Point of contact for Finance on queries regarding BPL invoices; resolve as necessary.
- Non-library partners primary contact: Lead P&P contact and intermediary with Engineering for APH, CAST, NIMAC, and similar organizations both in regularly scheduled meetings and as issues arise.
- Liaise with engineering: Represent P&P in meetings and work with the Product and Engineering departments to ensure team business needs are met.
- Budget forecasting and tracking: Forecast and track annual and quarterly P&P budgets. Specific attention to revenue generation for Bookshare Platform and GCA suite
- Direct collections maintenance: Guide P&P staff and seek company-wide input on special collections and other curated lists; assign staff to fulfill. Monitor upcoming opportunities for new collections and updates to drive membership increase.
- Metrics tracking and reporting: Through dashboards, Salesforce, and Bookshare reporting catalog, monitor key department metrics such as financials, TATs, overdue purchases, and books in student request pipeline.
- Student request pipeline tracking and supervision: Supervise staff who have primary responsibility for functions: creating requests, fulfilling through NIMAC, purchasing, receiving, chopping/scanning, conversion by vendors, approving files. Provide guidance and answer queries from staff. Track key measures.
- Data research and reporting: Support leadership in grant funding by providing quarterly reports and metrics, plus data and research as requested for five-year OSEP grant. Scrub and refine data to address requests appropriately; evaluate usefulness of tracking and data and suggest improvements. Run reports in PowerBI and DataWarehouse, requesting data from Data Insights when not available in readily accessible tools. Troubleshoot problems. Raise requests for new reports; act as intermediary and support BPL for PowerBI.
- Oversee and guide the activity for Benetech volunteers who work on getting accessible books for paying Bookshare members.
