Role Snapshot
Director of Professional Learning to define long-term strategy and organizational design for the Professional Learning Services team, leading a team while driving measurable impact on customer retention and revenue.
Job Description
Why You'll Love This Role:
We are seeking a visionary Director of Professional Learning to define the long-term strategy and organizational design for our Professional Learning Services team. In this critical leadership role, you will be accountable for the entire Professional Learning P&L and its measurable impact on customer retention and revenue. You will lead a team of Professional Learning Managers, and ensure our professional learning content and delivery models scale to meet the needs of every Newsela customer while setting the industry standard for excellence.
What You'll Be Doing:
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Team Leadership & Development
- Build and scale the Professional Learning team with a focus on developing future leaders and aligning team structure to support company growth and go-to-market priorities.
- Define and own the metrics framework for the PL function, including team performance, content effectiveness, and customer outcomes, with regular reporting to senior leadership.
- Lead organizational change initiatives that improve scalability, operational effectiveness, and customer impact across the Professional Learning function.
Content Strategy & Quality
- Define and own the strategic framework for all Professional Learning content, grounded in proven educational research and adult-learning best practices.
- Ensure PL offerings directly drive measurable customer ROI, teacher engagement, and product adoption.
- Partner with Product and Marketing to ensure Professional Learning strategy and content remain aligned to evolving product capabilities, customer needs, and market positioning..
Customer Journey & Revenue Impact
- Establish a multi-year content delivery strategy that integrates Professional Learning into the broader customer journey, including scaled success models and long-term retention initiatives.
- Partner with Customer Success and Sales to position PL as a driver of expansion and renewal, connecting learning outcomes to commercial results.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of PL resources across educator, administrator, and student outcomes, and adapt content accordingly.
Vendor & Budget Management
- Own all PL vendor relationships, contracts, and budget planning, ensuring spend aligns with quarterly targets and delivers maximum return.
About You:
- 10+ years of progressive experience in professional learning or educational services leadership, including 5+ years successfully managing a strategic function or P&L at the Director level or higher.
- Proven ability to build, scale, and lead a high-performing team of managers, including talent development, organizational design, and coaching toward measurable commercial and impact goals, while balancing strategic planning with operational execution.
- Willingness and ability to travel up to 30% of the time year-round.
- Executive-level expertise in adult learning theory, literacy instruction, and the competitive K-12 landscape.
- Demonstrated ability to leverage technology and data (e.g., Salesforce, LMS) to drive operational efficiency and inform strategic P&L decisions.
- Extensive, proven experience presenting, negotiating, and aligning multi-year strategic proposals, budget forecasts, and commercial performance data with executive leadership (VP-level and above) and external stakeholders.
All offers of employment are contingent upon the successful completion of a background check as part of our pre-employment process.
Why you’ll love working at Newsela:
- Health & Wellness: Comprehensive medical benefits with employer contribution to premiums and to HSA accounts. Additional benefits such as gym reimbursement, pet insurance, free access to the Calm app, Rocket Lawyer and more to help you stay healthy: mind, body, and soul.
- Work From Home: We are a fully remote company. We provide a monthly tech stipend to support your WFH needs!
- Supporting ALL Families: Inclusive benefits to support you and your family, including parental leave, fertility support, adoption, and more!
- Financial Wellbeing: Invest in your future with our 401(k) plan, which includes a employer match to help you build long-term financial security.
- Time Off: Flexible PTO, paid sick time off, company holidays plus winter break (Dec 24th - Jan 1st).
- Professional Development: Newsela offers an annual learning and development allowance to employees to attend external training sessions, classes, workshops, conferences, and educational materials to foster professional growth within their current role and career aspirations at Newsela.
- Make A Difference: No matter your role or department, the work you do each day helps share the future of education and improves the lives of students and teachers.
About Newsela:
Newsela is a leading education technology company dedicated to meaningful classroom learning for every student. We deliver integrated, AI-powered solutions designed to unlock student engagement, empower teachers, and drive meaningful learning outcomes. Our suite of products supports knowledge and skill development, writing practice, daily instruction, assessment, and data-informed decision-making across K–12 classrooms. Grounded in learning science research, Newsela’s solutions integrate content, assessment, and analytics to help educators track progress, understand student outcomes, and deliver high-impact instruction that supports every learner.
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Final compensation will be determined based on the candidate’s individual skills, qualifications, and experience. Total compensation for this role also includes incentive stock options and benefits.
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