Associate Director, Publishing

The Associate Director, Publishing provides strategic leadership for the PLOS journal portfolio, ensuring that portfolio priorities, publishing investments, and journal development strategies align with organizational goals and advance PLOS’s mission.

Reporting to the Director, Publishing & Publishing Operations, the Associate Director leads and develops a team of Publishers responsible for the performance and strategic development of journals portfolios. The Associate Director serves as the primary steward of portfolio-wide publishing performance, translating organizational strategy into clear priorities and ensuring effective coordination across the organization.

The Associate Director uses publishing data, financial information, market intelligence, and research community insight to guide strategic decisions, establish priorities, identify opportunities for growth and innovation, and manage risks. Working in partnership with the Director, Publishing & Publishing Operations, the Associate Director ensures that journal-level strategies collectively support a sustainable PLOS portfolio with a strong value proposition.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, and support a team of senior publishing professionals responsible for journal and subject portfolio performance.
• Establish clear goals, priorities, and measures of accountability that align with organizational and portfolio strategy.
• Provide coaching, professional development, succession planning, and performance management for direct reports.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, inclusion, accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Work with Publishers to ensure effective leadership and development of Journal Development Managers and other publishing staff.

Responsibilities

Portfolio Strategy and Performance

• Develop and implement a portfolio-wide publishing strategy aligned with PLOS’s mission and organizational objectives.
• Ensure that journal and subject portfolio strategies collectively support a clear and differentiated value proposition for the PLOS portfolio.
• Lead regular portfolio reviews and develop recommendations regarding journal positioning, growth opportunities, performance, and future direction.
• Balance the needs of individual journals and research communities with broader portfolio and organizational objectives.
• Support Publishers in identifying and responding to changes in research communities, funding policies, scholarly communication, and the publishing market.
• Develop consistent approaches and decision-making frameworks for evaluating proposals, opportunities, and performance across the portfolio.
• Guide the evaluation and development of new journals, products, services, and publishing models in line with PLOS’s strategic direction.

Strategic and Business Leadership

• Translate organizational strategy into clear portfolio priorities, objectives, and plans for the publishing team.
• Oversee publishing budgets and forecasts in partnership with the Director and Publishers, ensuring responsible decision-making and effective resource allocation.
• Act as a thought partner to, and deputize for, the Director, Publishing & Publishing Operations when appropriate.
• In close collaboration with colleagues in Editorial, Sales, and Global Publishing Development, support publishers in developing impactful relationships with Editors-in-Chief, Editorial Board members, researchers, institutions, societies, and partner organizations.
• Build productive partnerships across Editorial, Publishing Operations, Sales & Global Publishing Development, Product, Technology, Marketing, Finance, Research Integrity, and other organizational teams.
• Work with Editorial and Publishing Operations leaders to ensure that journal strategies are supported by effective policies, processes, services, and quality standards.
• Partner with Marketing and Communications to strengthen journal positioning, audience engagement, portfolio visibility, and demand generation.

Leadership and Culture

• Model the culture and behaviors PLOS is seeking to build, actively driving the culture change the organization needs through this transformation.
• Serve as a collaborative leader across PLOS, fostering strong cross-functional partnerships and organizational alignment that enable shared organizational priorities to be delivered successfully.
• Lead change effectively by ensuring a clear strategic rationale, defined outcomes, appropriate measures of success, realistic resource requirements, and clear accountability and decision-making.

Qualifications & Skills

Required

• A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.
• Business problem solver – operates with curiosity to get to the root of the business problem to ensure the ultimate solution is grounded in PLOS’s strategy and mission.
• Substantial experience launching Open Access journals from proposal to publication.
• Strong commercial and financial skills, including experience with budgeting, forecasting, business planning, and P&L ownership.
• Substantial experience in STM publishing with progressively increased responsibility.
• Experience managing senior publishing professionals, or comparable portfolio leaders.
• Proven ability to develop and execute strategic plans that deliver measurable business and operational outcomes.
• Strong track record of leading and developing high-performing, geographically distributed teams.
• Exceptional communication, relationship-building, and stakeholder management skills across cultures, disciplines, and organizational functions.
• Dedication to open access and transforming scholarly communication, with a genuine interest in engaging productively with the scientific community.

Preferred

• Experience leading high-volume journal portfolios and/or megajournals.