Are you an experienced Digital Leader, interested in taking our Penguin Brand to the next level?
In this newly created role, our Head of Digital Channels will own the end-to-end user experience across all owned and social channels, operating the entire Penguin digital channel estate that includes Penguin Books, Penguin Crime, Penguin Food and more. The aim is clear, to create a joined-up user experience that delights and engages our growing audience.
This role has been designed to be at the heart of our user experience and is driven strategically by digital analytics. Reporting into our brand’s Digital Marketing Director and managing a team of 5 teams including – digital channels, development and UX/UI, ecommerce and our podcast. With the end-to-end capability to deliver, you will embody our mission to leverage the power of our brand and will empower your team to do so, too.
Our Penguin Brand houses a number of central areas of specialist expertise which support and work closely with our nine publishing houses to connect our books and authors with readers. The department, made up of around 65 people, includes experts from digital marketing, brand, communications, design, consumer insights, events production and more.
The iconic Penguin brand – the only consumer-facing brand in publishing – sits at the heart of what we do. With the recent rapid growth in online sales, we have an exciting opportunity to leverage the power of our brand to help new and different readers discover our books and to champion the causes we care about. We’ve recently undergone an internal reorganisation in our department to help us take advantage of this unique opportunity, which includes building a leading digital marketing team and platform.
Some of your responsibilities include:
Owning the end-to-end user experience and commercial results for all Penguin websites
Leading a team of Channel Leads to define launch parameters and prioritise features in the channel roadmap.
Translating business strategy and goals into a channel vision and strategy that drives demonstrable business value.
Guiding our digital development squad, identifying opportunities, building digital solutions, and growing the features and capability of our digital channels and emerging products.
Driving commercial, consumer experience, and compliance prioritisation for our website channels.
Driving channel strategies and long-term vision to build best in class digital experiences across channels.
Managing the in-year and long-term channel roadmap and backlog for all digital channels growing features, journeys, and commercial results.
Overseeing and guiding the digital channel team in requirements discovery, solution design, user story writing, feature development, and user acceptance testing with our development squad.
Partnering with content, marketing, divisional marketers, and our communications teams to execute on the integrated marketing plan and identify key capabilities needed.
Partnering with IT to manage the roadmap and backlog to ensure that IT delivers all back-end capabilities on time and per expectation.
To succeed in this role, you will:
Be a trailblazer that leads from the front, with the ability to mentor, guide and develop your direct and extended line reports.
Be an experienced digital channels lead, with significant experience defining, executing, and continually improving owned and social channels.
Have experience crafting a vision for digital channels and convert that into a concrete strategy with practical execution.
Be a commercially experienced digital channel owner, with extensive experience in digital product development and delivery, including planning, user case creation, and user experience design.
Be motivated to architect and drive change and build the foundations for a best in class digital channel function.
Have strong analytical, prioritisation, and negotiating skills.
Be an experienced Agile practitioner with the ability to upskill team members and grow the use of Agile
Be comfortable managing competing priorities and able to influence senior stakeholders with the singular focus on the consumer experience.
Have experience building web and ecommerce digital channels and solving consumer and business problems
Our approach to hybrid working:
While our offices are places for you to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, having flexibility about where you work is just as important for doing your best work and for your wellbeing. So, we don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to how we work across Penguin Random House UK.
For this role, there are regular meetings and activities that you will need to attend in person mainly at our offices in Nine Elms. Outside of these moments, you can choose to work remotely.
The exact balance of office to remote working can be discussed with your future manager during the recruitment process. What we can say now is that you won’t need to go into the office five days a week (unless of course you want to!)
Please apply with your CV and cover letter by Monday 19th September.
What you can expect from us:
Salary: £62,000 – £82,000 dependent on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus bonus and benefits.
Our employees are the heart of our business. We have a range of benefits to reflect our commitment to our employees, some of which are:
• 27 days paid holiday entitlement in year one (plus bank holidays), increasing a day each year up to 30 days
• Medical cover
• Life assurance
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Discounted gym membership
• Generous pension scheme
• Summer working hours (role dependent)
• Volunteering policy and charity matching
• Employee Assistance programme
• Mentoring programme
• Extended gender neutral parental leave
• Access to books and eBooks across Penguin Random House UK
• Each site has trained mental health first aiders
• We plant a tree for every new employee to our business
Our creativity is inspired by different perspectives, so we want our culture to be one of belonging, where everyone feels welcome and where differences are celebrated.
As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we’re part of the offer an interview scheme. This is where disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role can opt in to get to the next recruitment stage. There may be some situations where volume of applicants means we can’t take all eligible candidates to interview.
We want to make sure disabled applicants can be their best at each step of the recruitment journey. If you need adjustments during the application process, we encourage you to get in touch with us at http://PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk.
Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable to for us to support your adjustment request. Find out more about our approach here: www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/applying-for-roles-with-a-disability
We partner with The Book Trade Charity, who provide financial assistance for people looking to get into the publishing industry; you can find more information and talk directly here: http://booktradeentrysupport.org/
Please note, we are not able to accept agency CVs for this role. Any CVs sent speculatively will not be eligible for a fee.
