Vice President, Nature Communications Portfolio

Job Title: Vice President, Nature Communications Portfolio

Locations: New York, Berlin or Heidelberg - Hybrid Working

Application deadline: June 15th 2024

About the Role  

The Vice President, Nature Communications Portfolio is a new position in the Nature Portfolio journals leadership team overseeing Nature Communications and the Communications series journals. The VP Nature Communications Portfolio will proactively drive the growth of Nature Communications and the Communications journals by overseeing their editorial and publishing activities and scale the Portfolio through strategic development, new launches and targeted initiatives to drive growth.  This is an exciting opportunity to play a key leadership role in the market-leading journal Nature Portfolio and help drive its overall contribution to the research enterprise.
 

Responsibilities:

Drive the growth and success of the Nature Communications Portfolio

• Lead, motivate and inspire the journal teams to deliver on Nature Portfolio’s reputation for quality and the flagship OA role of Nature Communications

• Develop and deliver on a market-focused strategic roadmap for the Portfolio that ensures it is a major growth driver for Springer Nature
• Strengthen publishing and editorial activities, delivering excellent author service and ensuring editorial integrity by overseeing a global editorial team
• Work closely with other Springer Nature functions (e.g. Production, Marketing, Legal) to maximise journal performance and minimize risk
• Agree annual targets for journal publication volumes and ensure that these targets are met

• Take responsibility for the financial performance (revenues and OCC) of the Portfolio
• Optimize resource allocation to ensure that growth is supported effectively

• Monitor relevant competitors and market developments to ensure that we can learn and/or respond as appropriate
• Use market insights to improve customer experience and power success
• Establish a customer-focused approach within the team, using insights from researcher engagement to improve journal positioning and performance

• Identify new opportunities, test their viability in an agile way, and roll out to the broader portfolio as appropriate
• Engage with the leaders and teams of the Nature-branded Publishing Unit to ensure coordinated development of the entire Nature Portfolio

• Take responsibility for achieving goals and for reporting back on progress within the Nature Portfolio and to the Executive team and Board 

Effectively lead a high-performance team that embraces change

• Create a positive and energetic team environment

• Establish a culture that balances the need to ensure Nature Portfolio quality with commercial growth goals
• Ensure that the strategic and tactical goals for your business are understood, owned and applied within your group and beyond
• Create a strong performance culture within your team

• Engage the team in testing, launching and iterating new ideas and building successful approaches into new ways of working
• Support managers within the group in establishing change competence throughout the team to fuel a culture of continuous improvement
• Collaborate with colleagues across the broader Nature Portfolio to test new workflows and team organisation approaches to enhance overall portfolio efficiency and productivity
• Role-model Springer Nature values and ways of working and ensure that these are incorporated into the day-to-day activities of your team

Experience, Skills, Qualifications:

• Required: Advanced degree in a research area covered by the Nature Portfolio or extensive experience working in research-related environment
• Full understanding of the Editorial/Publishing landscape, particularly of editorial processes and practices
• A strong understanding of the needs and challenges of publishing high-quality research journals
• Senior leadership experience in managing the performance of a large, diverse team
• Track record of working across geographies and with different nationalities and cultures
• Experience of working within a complex global matrixed environment would be advantageous
• Comprehensive experience managing a business area, including financial management
• Proven track record for delivering growth and managing change
• Entrepreneurial mindset and approach, combined with strong commercial acumen
• A data-informed approach and the ability to apply data to strategic thinking
• Effective negotiating and influencing skills, especially within a matrixed environment
• Disciplined approach to portfolio management
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to build both internal and external relationships
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills 
• A collaborative mindset and approach