Managing Editor

Title: Managing Editor, Macmillan Education 

Company: Macmillan Education  

Area or Department: Editorial  

Location: Mexico City 

About Springer Nature Group 

Springer Nature opens the doors to discovery for researchers, educators, clinicians and other professionals. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals, platforms and technology solutions reach millions of people. For over 180 years our brands and imprints have been a trusted source of knowledge to these communities and today, more than ever, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that fundamental knowledge can be found, verified, understood and used by our communities – enabling them to improve outcomes, make progress, and benefit the generations that follow. Visit group.springernature.com and follow @SpringerNature / @SpringerNatureGroup 

About the Brand 

Macmillan Education provides world-class content in the most relevant, engaging and flexible formats to support students, teachers and institutions in lifelong learning. Visit macmillaneducation.com and follow @MacmillanEducation / @MacmillanELT 

Short Summary of the Division 

As part of the Publishing Operations function, the Delivery team is responsible for ensuring the high-quality, on-time and within budget delivery of print and digital components and materials for our ELT courses, working from final/developed content to handover of final files and go live. Working in close collaboration with cross-functional teams, they implement Delivery best practices, workflows, tools and templates to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the publishing process. The team is also involved in product development and post-publication maintenance and is critical to the success of our projects. 

About the role 

You will be responsible for the delivery of high quality, on-time and within-budget print and digital components for our ELT courses. You will manage components and assets from final/developed content to handover of final files and go live, working across both internally resourced and fully outsourced (packaged) projects. You may also be required to provide some editorial support during product/content development and post-publication maintenance and updates. You will work closely with colleagues in Publishing Operations and across other functions as part of a project team to ensure that titles are delivered on time, to brief and within budget. 

Role Responsibilities:   

Project work:

• Work across assigned number of projects and components (from sample materials to sign off and project closure)
• Track all relevant tasks assigned to you closely across your project schedules, anticipating and mitigating any risks or delays and keeping the Project Manager and wider team fully updated on work in progress
• Manage the Delivery workflow from approved content through to publication/go live (including manuscript preparation, editing and finalizing artwork briefs and audio scripts, participating in copy-editing and proofreading (as required)
• Work with Publishing to create and maintain acceptance criteria (for packagers – on packaged projects), approvals forms, style sheets, page plans, media logs, archive handover documents and authoring templates, mapping documents and other key editorial documentation
• Coordinate proof circulations and digital releases, collating feedback and managing queries Provide course marketing material as required
• Participate in post-publication evaluation meetings to inform improvements in process
• Ensure best practice is followed at all times, acting as an advocate for Delivery best practice and suggesting improvements as necessary 

Project set up

• Review and feed back to Project Managers for Delivery tasks on project schedules as part of the team-wide schedule validation process

Financial management:

• Support the preparation of Delivery budgets by providing cost estimates for Delivery tasks on assigned components and assets at project approval stages
• Monitor and track the Delivery budget for your assigned components and assets, alerting the Project Manager and Editorial Manager to any concerns/risks of overspend, and raise Change Requests in a timely manner as required
• Proactively look for ways to drive down Delivery costs at all times
• Provide Delivery spend figures on your assigned components and assets as required 

Freelance and supplier management:

• Engage, brief and proactively manage Delivery team suppliers according to the needs of the project (including reviews of supplier/freelancer work for quality control purposes)
• Follow supplier engagement best practice and policy (including the use of preferred suppliers and rates where available, as well as following all contracting and PO guidelines)
• Ensure contracts and POs are prepared and circulated for approval in a timely manner
• Identify onboarding requirements and facilitate required systems set up (following agreed guidelines and workflow) and training
• Ensure all tasks are completed to brief, alerting the project team of any issues, working to mitigate as required. Escalate issues to line manager, Editorial Manager and Outsourcing Manager as appropriate
• Actively look for and suggest ways to utilize suppliers to mitigate resource issues on your projects 

Internal systems and processes:

• Share knowledge and experience with the wider Delivery team via team meetings
• Actively look for and suggest ways to improve workflows, project development and delivery to promote continuous improvement
• Validate and feed into department and business-wide process, systems and workflow initiatives on behalf of Delivery as requested
• Ensure Delivery team data on company systems is accurate and all required detail and documents are uploaded in a timely fashion 

Market awareness and training:

• Understand Macmillan Education’s publishing strategy and the company’s business goals
• Keep up to date on ELT and general publishing issues, particularly ELT/EFL in an international context
• As requested, work with the Delivery management team on developing/delivering training and support, and participate in training (as determined by your line manager) for continuing professional development 

Additional tasks:

• Complete additional tasks as defined and agreed with your line manager and Delivery management team 

Experience, Skills & Qualifications:  

• Educated to degree level or equivalent combination of education and experience 
• A genuine interest in ELT/language learning a recognized ELT/EFL qualification and/or teaching experience would be an advantage) 
• Experience of working on large-scale print and digital publishing projects, and simultaneously managing multiple components and assets through delivery 
• Experience of working across multiple regions in cross functional project teams 
• Strong organisational and editorial skills – an eye for detail and commitment to accuracy 
• Competent with widely-used office applications (InCopy and/or InDesign an advantage, as well as experience of content management systems (CMS)) 
• Commercial and financial awareness – able to track budgets 
• Ability to manage a varied and demanding workload 
• Ability to deal with and resolve ambiguity 
• Excellent written and oral communication 
• Able to work independently as well as part of a team 
• Experience of working with company systems and data and willingness to learn and fully engage with all such systems 
• Experience of supplier/freelancer management 
• A positive attitude and commitment to the aims of the department 

At Springer Nature, we value the diversity of our teams and work to build an inclusive culture, where people are treated fairly and can bring their differences to work and thrive. We empower our colleagues and value their diverse perspectives as we strive to attract, nurture and develop the very best talent.  

 
Springer Nature was awarded Diversity Team of the Year at the 2022 British Diversity Awards. Find out more about our DEI work here: https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/taking-responsibility/diversity-equity-inclusion  
  
If you have any access needs related to disability, neurodivergence or a chronic condition, please contact us so we can make all necessary accommodation.  
  
For more information about career opportunities in Springer Nature please visit https://careers.springernature.com/

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