Manager, Partnership Management

The Manager, Partner Success leads a team of Partner Success professionals responsible for supporting state, district, and school partners throughout the assessment lifecycle while ensuring the successful delivery of assigned programs and services.

This role oversees partner engagement, readiness planning, training, adoption, issue resolution, and ongoing relationship management to ensure customers are prepared, informed, and positioned for success. The Manager is accountable for program performance, customer satisfaction, operational execution, and achievement of cost, quality, and schedule commitments.

Working closely with Program Delivery, Product, Technology, Measurement, Operations, and Customer Support teams, the Manager translates organizational priorities into actionable plans, coaches team members to become trusted advisors, and serves as a key escalation point for partner and delivery concerns.

The ideal candidate is a collaborative leader with strong program management, customer relationship, and people leadership skills who is passionate about creating exceptional customer experiences, developing high-performing teams, and helping educational organizations maximize the value of Pearson's assessment solutions.

Key Responsibilities

Partner Success

• Build and maintain strong relationships with state, district, and school partners.

• Lead customer readiness, implementation, training, and adoption planning activities.

• Serve as an escalation point for complex customer concerns, risks, and delivery issues.

• Partner with customers to identify opportunities for continuous improvement and long-term success.

• Monitor customer satisfaction and implement strategies to improve the overall customer experience.

Program Leadership & Delivery

• Oversee one or more assessment programs or strategic customer relationships.

• Coordinate cross-functional teams to ensure successful delivery of program commitments.

• Monitor program schedules, risks, issues, budgets, and key milestones.

• Ensure compliance with contractual requirements and delivery expectations.

• Lead forecasting, planning, and business reviews related to assigned programs.

• Manage program financials to meet revenue/margin plan, explaining trends and differences from original plan.

• Report on financial status and accurately estimate/forecast program activities and budgets, and control costs while maintaining quality

People Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Partner Success professionals.

• Establish clear goals, priorities, and performance expectations.

• Provide ongoing mentoring and career development support.

• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, customer focus, and continuous improvement.

• Build team capability and promote sharing of best practices across programs and customers.

Operational Excellence

• Drive process improvements that enhance customer experience and delivery effectiveness.

• Partner with cross-functional leaders to improve communication, coordination, and execution.

• Identify and mitigate delivery, customer, and operational risks.

• Develop and implement scalable practices that improve consistency across the Partner Success organization.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• 5+ years of experience leading customer-facing programs, partner success, client services, program management, educational services, or assessment delivery functions.

• Demonstrated success leading and developing high-performing teams, including coaching, performance management, and talent development.

• Experience managing complex customer relationships and serving as an escalation point for operational, delivery, or customer satisfaction issues.

• Strong program and project management skills, including experience managing schedules, risks, dependencies, budgets, and cross-functional initiatives.

• Proven ability to influence and collaborate across multiple functions, including Product, Technology, Operations, Measurement, Content, and Customer Support teams.

• Strong communication, facilitation, negotiation, and presentation skills, with the ability to effectively engage customers, executive leadership, and internal stakeholders.

• Demonstrated ability to identify customer needs, solve complex problems, and drive continuous improvement initiatives that improve customer outcomes and operational effectiveness.

• Experience managing financial performance, including forecasting, budget management, contract value tracking, resource planning, or margin accountability.

• This position may require up to 25% travel