Global Head of Content

Grays Inn Rd, London WC1X 8NH, UK ● Norfolk St, Sheffield City Centre, Sheffield S1 2JE, UK Req #606

13 December 2023

Global Head of Content

Location: Sheffield or London, UK

Full time, permanent

Tes is an international provider of digital solutions, which is passionate about using technology to make life easier for schools and teachers. All products and services are built with teachers and schools needs at the core, ensuring they are innovative, trusted education solutions.

Role overview:

As the Global head of Content, you’ll form the Tes content department by assembling the different content teams who have working on different types of product content throughout the business. You will have full responsibility for the strategic direction and operational excellence of our content operations. Your visionary leadership will guide all our content teams to new heights, ensuring its alignment with our long-term business trajectory.

• Strategic Vision: You'll craft the Tes content vision and strategy, working closely with key stakeholders inside and outside our department, and aligning it seamlessly with broader business objectives, especially in terms of value proposition and Go-To-Market strategies. By keenly understanding customer needs, you'll fine-tune our content strategy to exceed audience expectations. This role also involves establishing the department in the business, optimising ways of working and fostering cross-team collaboration.
• Elevating Content Operations: Your responsibility is to continuously enhance content quality, quantity, and operational efficiency. You'll lead the implementation of best practices and the evolution of content tools and frameworks to generate synergies and continuously raise our standards. You will stimulate continuous improvement and innovation to secure market leadership and sustain growth. You'll also manage a dynamic roadmap and capacity planning.
• Empowering Teams: You'll nurture individual growth within the content department, creating a mutually beneficial scenario for individuals and the organisation. Promoting teamwork and collaboration is key to success. As a cultural champion, you'll drive engagement, empowerment, and an agile, improvement-focused mindset.

Key Responsibilities:

• Delivering on the content department's budget and sustaining double-digit growth year on year.
• Developing the vision and strategy for the content department across all product content teams & markets, leveraging our ecosystem to build a competitive advantage and stimulate gro wth.
• Shaping plans and operational set-up to deliver the strategy successfully and grow the business in line with agreed parameters.
• Managing and developing the content department teams directly, playing a supporting leadership role with key teams such as sales, operations, and marketing teams to rapidly expand activities in the UK and internationally.
• Defining and implementing clear standards, ways of working, tools, planning and monitoring framework across the different teams to drive continuous improvement holistically
• Establishing the department in the organisation to design the best way forwards with the other departments& stakeholders, drive alignment and ultimately maximise business value
• Setting up and leveraging a community of subject matter experts not only to work closely with the content production teams, but also to inform the company’s product strategy, and to help sustain or elevate Tes as a thought leader in the market.
• Supporting the development of revenue streams with a focus on international expansion, committed recurring business, and a reduced reliance on external funding.
• Driving compliance and quality assurance to ensure the academic integrity of all our programs and strong qualitative outcomes for our learners and schools.
• Working closely with the Department for Education (DfE) and other stakeholders to safeguard the future of key programs with governmental dependencies, including leading on procurement activity.
• Being the figurehead for the content department externally and with our existing or potential partners, developing key relationships with senior stakeholders in government, school, academic, and regulatory circles.
• Collaborating closely with all relevant teams within Tes to deliver outstanding services to our customers while developing synergies and common working practices.
• Working collaboratively with the Tes Senior Management Team (SMT) to ensure a strong organisational design and leading on relevant board and financial reporting.
• Making the content department a cohesive, inspiring, and great place to work with a positive culture.
• Providing strong leadership and driving effective management of teams by utilising a coaching culture to attract and retain talented employees.
• Translating the organisation's vision, values, and mission into actionable, quantitative plans.
• Setting compelling goals and schedules for improvement, conveying a sense of urgency where appropriate, and managing issues to closure/completion.

What will you need to succeed?

• Educational Foundation: A solid educational foundation, ideally with graduate or postgraduate qualifications in a relevant field related to education, content management, or a related discipline.
• Seasoned Industry Expertise: Over 10 years of industry-specific experience in content strategy and management, with at least 5 in a senior content leadership role in a digital business.
• Leadership Acumen: A proven track record of leadership at the senior director team level, demonstrating your ability to guide, inspire, and lead teams effectively.
• Strategic Vision: A keen strategic acumen honed through years of experience in developing and executing content strategies, particularly in large, complex organizations.
• Commercial Acumen: Extensive experience in managing content-related revenue streams, with a focus on navigating the unique challenges and opportunities ideally within the education-centric environment, both in the UK and internationally.
• Financial Stewardship: A history of successfully managing profit and loss (P&L) statements and consistently achieving financial objectives.
• Effective Communication: Exceptional communication skills that include the capacity to provide visionary leadership, engage with stakeholders, and articulate complex ideas clearly and persuasively.
• Business Development Prowess: A strong track record of identifying and capitalizing on business development opportunities, fostering valuable partnerships that drive content-focused initiatives.
• Analytical Proficiency: A robust analytical mindset, coupled with a comfort level for working within dynamic and intricate environments, enabling data-driven decision-making.
• Innovative Thinking: Creative thinking when it comes to content innovation, community building, and enhancing the overall customer experience, especially in an educational context.
• Agile Mastery: A deep understanding and application of agile methodologies to content management, with a proven ability to cultivate a culture of continuous improvement, feedback, and adaptability.

What do you get in return?

• 25 days annual leave rising to 30
• Hybrid working, 3+ days in the office
• State of the art city centre offices
• Access to a range of benefits via My Benefits World
• Discounted city centre parking
• Free eye care cover
• Life Assurance
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• EAP (Employee assistance programme)
• Monthly Tes Socials
• Access to an extensive Learning and Development menu

Who are Tes?

Tes powers schools and enables great teaching worldwide, by creating intelligent online products and services to make the greatest difference in education.

For more than 100 years, we’ve supported schools and been a champion of great teaching. As education is changing, so are we. We’ve grown to provide a wide range of products to help schools and students flourish.

We work together with teachers and schools to build trusted education solutions that help them to be the best they can be. From safeguarding and compliance, to staff and pupil management, and professional development and SEND provision, our innovative and flexible services help teachers and school leaders worldwide to provide the best education to millions of children.

Tes has over 13m teachers in its online community and working relationships with 25,000 schools in over 100 countries. Tes brings educators together online so they can share expertise and teaching resources and it provides them with vital information, research and analysis about education via its fully digital Tes Magazine.

Tes is a global company employing over 600 people and operating across 10 offices, including in London, Sheffield, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Dubai.

We are proud of our people centric culture where everyone is driven to achieve the same goal. We are an agile organisation striving for continuous improvement. We invest in our people with extensive learning and development opportunities and support our colleagues with various mentoring and career enhancement programmes.

Tes Global will ensure all qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, colour, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or on the basis of disability. We invite applicants to contact us directly to identify any additional support required.

• Norfolk St, Sheffield City Centre, Sheffield S1 2JE, UK