Delivery Lead - B2B Sales and Marketing

Who we are

We are an organisation that exists to drive progress. That's the “red thread” that connects everyone at The Economist Group (TEG). Our businesses share a devotion to innovation, independence and rigour in their fields of expertise. We empower people to understand and tackle the critical challenges and changes facing the world. Our analytical rigour, global expertise and evidence-based insights enable individuals and organisations to make sense of these shifts and chart a course through them.

We deliver analysis and insights in many formats to subscribers and clients in 170 countries through our four businesses, The Economist, Economist Impact, Economist Intelligence and Economist Education, which uphold our global reputation for excellence and integrity. 

We are seeking a Delivery Lead to join The Economist Group’s Technology team.The role will help plan, manage and deliver the roadmaps across our newly established B2B sales and marketing function. 

The Economist has several business units including The Economist (i.e. the “newspaper”), Economist Intelligence, Economist Impact, Economist Events and Economist Education. This new B2B function enables these business units to (1) effectively manage a shared CRM pool, (2) optimise sales pipeline conversion, and (3) improve marketing communication with prospective and existing customers. 

Now that we’ve launched the function there is a healthy roadmap of new and exciting investments we plan to make in this domain. You’ll work directly with Sales and Marketing leadership, your in-house engineering team and the occasional vendor, to shape, plan and execute that roadmap, all with the goal of growing our strong B2B business. 

We’re looking for someone who can impact delivery metrics in relation to predictability, visibility and collaboration, ensure end-to-end delivery and coach a continuous improvement mindset for all teams.

The Economist is a passionate group of digital professionals who “click” with our content. We are a multi-disciplinary team in a fast-paced and collaborative environment, who value honest opinion and open debate. We’re in the business of building modern, state-of-the-art products, and delivering a first-rate customer experience. 

In this role you will be required to:

• Delivery oversight of B2B Sales and Marketing. Perform the role of Delivery Lead and Scrum Master.
• Use delivery metrics to optimise team planning, estimation and ways of working.
• Deliver complex “end-to-end” initiatives that touch upon multiple teams.
• Review end-to-end delivery and agile ways of working to ensure the team is working optimally across product, design, engineering and QA.
• Manage detailed, predictable monthly roadmap plans (Jira Plan aka Advanced Roadmaps), quarterly roadmaps (e.g. Jira Product Discovery), and team capacity plans (Google <> Jira integrated worksheets).
• Ensure the overall integrity, predictability and visibility of the roadmap.
• Identify, eliminate and proactively manage dependencies between teams.
• Proactively monitor progress, so that you then take responsibility to take corrective action (e.g. to monitor fragmentation to resolve poorly managed dependencies).
• Liaise and coordinate third party suppliers and dependencies to deadlines.
• Report delivery progress at regular intervals through status reporting, and comms to exec stakeholders.
• Contribute and get buy-in to the Delivery function’s strategic goals of visibility, predictability and collaboration.
• Willingness to grow, as we scale the organisation.

Skills

• Significant delivery experience within a B2C or B2B product organisation.
• Experience coordinating and managing dependencies across multiple (including external) teams.
• Simultaneous management of multiple software development teams.
• Strong understanding of a variety of Agile approaches e.g. Scrum, Kanban, scaled Agile. Willing to not be prescriptive, and instead adapt ways of working.
• Use agile metrics (cycle time, throughput, Monte Carlo) to optimise team planning, estimation and ways of working.
• Advanced user of Google Suite (including Jira integrations), Miro for workshop facilitation, Jira and Confluence.
• Coaching and mentoring skills - leading in Communities of Practices.
• Significant experience of successfully managing and delivering complex projects.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and able to challenge and influence decisions.
• Established leadership, time management, facilitation, organisational and problem solving skills.
• Ability to understand and articulate technical ideas clearly.
• Pragmatic and flexible, with a willingness to take on different roles and responsibilities in order to successfully deliver business initiatives.

Good to have

• Experience working with sales and marketing CRM platforms (e.g. Salesforce, Salesforce Marketing Cloud) and/or sales and marketing teams.
• Vendor and contract management.

Although this remit requires sales & marketing domain experience, the role itself is not domain specific. Product pillars (in any mature organisation) don’t remain static, and so as the organisation evolves you may move from domain to domain depending on demand.

#LI-Hybrid 

What we offer

Benefits
We offer excellent benefits including an incentive programme, generous annual and parental leave policies, volunteering days and well-being support throughout the year, as well as free access to all Economist content. Country specific benefits are also offered.

Our Values
Our values are a collective set of beliefs and behaviours that strengthen The Economist Group's purpose and demonstrate where we want to be as an organisation. They reflect on our mission to pursue progress for individuals, organisations and the world.

Independence
We are not bound to any party or interest and encourage exploration and free-thinking. We champion freedom, both within our organisation and around the world.

Integrity
We are bold in our efforts to uncover the truth and stand up for what we believe in. We inspire trust through our rigour, fact-checking and transparency.

Excellence
We aspire to the highest standards in all we do. We are ambitious and inquisitive in our pursuit of continuous progress and innovation.

Inclusivity
We value diversity in thought and background and encourage healthy debate with a breadth of perspectives. We treat our colleagues and customers fairly and respectfully.

Openness
We foster a collaborative and empathetic culture conducive to the interests, wit and initiative of our colleagues. New ideas are our lifeblood.

The Economist Group values diversity. We are committed to equal opportunities and creating an inclusive environment for all our colleagues and potential colleagues regardless of ethnic origin, national origin, gender, gender identity, race, colour, religious beliefs, disability, sexual orientation, age, marital status or any other status.