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About the Role
The Director of Product Innovation is accountable for the future of the Southwestern Advantage product portfolio. This position identifies opportunities and strategies to serve families through innovative and relevant product offerings via client and market research. The Director of Product Innovation connects field insight to portfolio solutions and leads the design, sourcing, and launch of new products and services, including digital, AI-enabled, and service-based solutions beyond historical print catalog offerings. This position owns the decision of what products to build and retire, reporting to the President of Southwestern Advantage and partnering closely with other department leaders.
Responsibilities
- Own a continuous research program with families, including in-home observation, post-purchase interviews, structured surveys, and research with prospects who declined to buy.
- Maintain a documented set of assumptions about family needs and design cheap tests to validate or disprove them before significant capital commitment.
- Spend time in the field during the selling season, with ride-alongs and in-home observation as a requirement.
- Build and own an independent channel for dealer and sales-organization feedback.
- Provide thorough, proven analytics for informed decisions and vision setting, including close rates by product, refund reasons, product-level objection tracking, and post-season dealer confidence surveys.
- Lead concept through launch for new offerings, including digital, subscription, AI-enabled, and service-based products.
- Design products against channel constraints, ensuring they are understandable in a single in-home presentation and retain value for the family six months later.
- Define pricing, packaging, and bundle architecture in partnership with Sales and Finance.
- Champion and oversee product requirements, learning design standards, and launch readiness criteria.
- Identify, evaluate, and negotiate content licensing, technology licensing, white-label, and reseller relationships with publishers, platforms, and technology providers.
- Structure agreements that protect the channel, including field exclusivity, pricing latitude, customer data ownership, AI and derivative-works rights, and wind-down provisions.
- Make and defend build-versus-license-versus-partner decisions with clear reasoning on cost, speed, and defensibility.
- Maintain a validated three-to-five-year roadmap with detailed product diagnose-design-launch-evaluate timelines.
- Lead an annual portfolio review with key stakeholders, including formal recommendations to sunset, restructure, or reprice underperforming offerings.
- Own the new product development budget and report on return against it.
- Ensure all products and product claims comply with applicable requirements, including student data privacy, accessibility standards, and truth-in-advertising substantiation for educational efficacy claims.
- Adhere to data and factual product representations regarding claims of learning outcomes, avoiding unsupported educational frameworks.
- Collaborate via regular monthly meetings with all departments, including marketing, finance, product, IT, operations, sales, and administration.
- Partner with the Director of Product Quality and Enhancement on the handoff of validated new products into ongoing catalog stewardship.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in business, Product Management, Marketing, Education, Learning Sciences, or a related field.
- 5 years of experience in product management, product development, innovation, commercialization, education products, consumer products, or a related business leadership role.
- Advanced computer skills and ability to effectively operate computer equipment, software systems, and databases.
- Proven success bringing new products, services, or solutions from concept to market.
- Expertise in customer discovery and market validation.
- Strong business and commercial acumen.
- Understanding of learning methodologies and educational product development.
- Experience developing and managing strategic partnerships, including negotiating vendor, licensing, distribution, or platform agreements and assessing associated business risks and opportunities.
- Demonstrated success leading cross-functional initiatives in complex, matrixed organizations, influencing stakeholders, building alignment, and driving results without direct authority.
- Strong strategic thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills, with the ability to evaluate opportunities, manage competing priorities, and execute against long-term business objectives.
- Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the ability to effectively influence executives, partners, and cross-functional teams.
- Ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously while accomplishing daily tasks.
- Attention to detail and critical thinker with exceptional problem-solving skills.
- High standards for integrity, honesty, professionalism, and work ethic.
- Commitment to service excellence.
- Ability to work independently while demonstrating excellent organization and follow-through.
- Demonstrate flexible and efficient time management and ability to prioritize workload.
- Ability and willingness to move with purpose and a strong sense of urgency.
- Self-motivated, positive, and enthusiastic.
- Self-starter with a strong desire to exceed expectations and capable of supporting a team.
- Maintain confidentiality discretion.
- Ability to effectively work in collaboration with others to achieve business objectives.
- Willing to grow and be challenged.
- Attend training as requested.
Skills
- Product Management
- Product Development
- Innovation
- Commercialization
- Customer Discovery
- Market Validation
- Strategic Partnerships
- Negotiation
- Cross-functional Leadership
- Strategic Thinking
- Problem-Solving
- Decision-Making
- Communication
- Presentation Skills
- Time Management
- Organization
- Follow-through
- Collaboration
Location
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Canada
Work Type
- Hybrid
Experience Level
- 5 years of experience
Education Level
- Bachelor’s degree
About the Company
- For over 150 years, Southwestern Advantage has helped young people develop the skills and character they need to achieve their goals in life.
- The company offers a sales & leadership program that gives university students a way to afford their degrees, gain entrepreneurial skills, and experience personal growth.
- Each summer, a sales force of over 1,500 independent student reps market educational resources to families across the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.
- The Southwestern Advantage Internship is the official internship of the Southwestern Family of Companies.