The Company
Working side-by-side with more than 3,000 clients, Blackboard is shaping how students learn, teachers teach and learning institutions improve across the globe. Our suite of software solutions helps K-12, higher education, corporate and government learning institutions deliver on the promise of the internet for teaching and learning.  
Blackboard Learn, our flagship solution, includes multiple applications that support all facets of the teaching and learning process -- including instruction in and out of the classroom, academic community development, learning content management, and assessment of learning outcomes.
With Blackboard’s offering becoming more and more relevant to the mission critical challenges education institutions face today (issues like student engagement, accountability, funding and globalization), Blackboard is poised to continue its rapid growth and to play a meaningful leadership role in the long term improvement of education.  This position will be a key driver in realizing these opportunities for our global eLearning business including North American Higher Education, K-12, International and Professional Education.

The Position    

The VP of Product Marketing will report to the VP of Product Management and Product  Marketing and will be responsible for the full gamut of product marketing for Blackboard’s teaching and learning software and service solutions including go-to-market strategy, product positioning and sales readiness.  This position will have responsibility for the key product marketing levers for Blackboard, which include market and competitive research, demand generation programs, category thought leadership, client retention and upgrade campaigns and repeatable sales process development.  

As a key member of the marketing management team and representative of Blackboard’s solution in the marketplace, the VP of Product Marketing will be responsible for creating product introduction strategies and execution plans that will enable Blackboard to achieve its financial goals and continue building a leadership position in the education technology marketplace.

Blackboard’s marketing team has delivered significant success in advancing the company’s market positioning, the product messaging, and enhancing its considerable brand and market awareness.  While much has been accomplished, much is yet to be done as Blackboard embarks on its next evolution in product and positioning, a change paralleled by the next evolution of the Product Marketing function which is already under way including the adoption of the industry-leading Pragmatic Marketing Framework.  The VP of Product Marketing will lead this process of building a new, empowered, and broader-in-scope product marketing organization that embodies and manifests an attitude that reflects its buyer-focused culture, market-facing orientation and thirst for measurable product impact on a wide scale.  For these reasons, Blackboard is seeking to recruit a dynamic Product Marketing leader with demonstrated product positioning and demand creation success into this critical leadership position.

The successful candidate will focus on the following initiatives:

•    Focus the majority of the near term product marketing energies on honing and executing measurable, market-driven, go-to-market strategies around key solution rollout initiatives for short-medium term growth, drawing attention to the solutions, the customer successes, and the compelling value proposition;
•    Work with other departmental leaders to build out and implement Blackboard’s global product introduction and launch process.  Leveraging the candidate’s own experiences and the Pragmatic Marketing methodology, install best-in-class processes and methodologies that will bring Blackboard’s new products to market with a great deal of buyer focus, precision, attention, and immediate support within the field, including all aspects of the launch, sales force readiness planning and demand generation.  
•    Partner with the Vertical Marketing team to build out and systematize the demand/lead generation  effort and ROI tracking to support sales processes and aggressive sales growth;
•    In concert with Product Management and other market-facing groups doing competitive research, extend Blackboard’s competitive intelligence with information and sales tools aimed at near term competitive threats while building a repeatable competitive research capability across Product Marketing.  
•    Build and bolster the product marketing team.  Fill critical vacancies quickly with highly capable and competent talent.  Meet with and assess the existing team to identify specific organizational needs and talent opportunities, discern coaching and mentoring opportunities, and implement the optimal leadership and organizational changes necessary to profitably deliver against the product marketing plan.

The Person

The ideal candidate will have 15+ years of professional experience, and will have a successful track record of leading and managing product marketing teams within a well-regarded and branded technology company, preferably in the enterprise software space.  He/she will have specific experience leading and managing product introductions with national and/or global scale.  Specific experiences in global program launch, demand generation, and field sales support programs are highly desirable.     

Specific academic technology domain knowledge would be outstanding, but is not required.  Most importantly, the ideal candidate will have significant marketing leadership and sales interaction experience within well-regarded and branded technology solutions companies.

Specific experiences will include:

•    An enthusiastic, high-energy and motivating leader with product marketing “attitude” who is visibly passionate and is capable of inspiring and motivating a fast growing product marketing team;

•    A professional with the intellect and the presence to become a true business partner across the corporate and field functions as well as represent Blackboard and its solutions in front of important audiences – clients, industry gatherings, media, analysts, etc.  

•    A strong focus on execution.  This individual must be strategic and creative – but strong execution capabilities are critical for success.  Success will be judged on what is accomplished and delivered, not what is proposed;

•    An executive with the appropriate level of drive and “toughness” to effectively manage multiple demanding and critical projects in a fast-paced environment, ensuring that results and deadlines are achieved without damaging morale;

•    A leader who creates loyalty, trust and following. One who can energize people and teams, and make cross-functional cooperation happen. This individual must be highly respected by both subordinates and superiors;

•    Highly entrepreneurial, with a high level of energy, dedication, and an unrelenting drive to succeed and win.  Not afraid to roll up his/her sleeves;

•    A learner, someone who can become deeply versed in, and articulate about, Blackboard’s space and solutions, setting an example and process his/her team can follow to build product and market mastery across the organization.  

Most importantly, the ideal candidate will be a team builder, team player, and a leader.  He/She will have the personal drive, passion and enthusiasm to both understand, and successfully navigate a fast-growing global in an evolving education technology marketplace.

In addition, the ideal candidate will possess the following:

•    A combination of large and small company experience and the personality traits—collaborative, honesty, integrity, intensity and passion—necessary to blend with the rest of the executive management team;

•    Hands-on and entrepreneurial style—one that looks to become personally involved in all elements of managing his/her functional responsibility, and someone who seeks to develop like-minded senior managers with similar capabilities;

•    A compelling leadership style that includes exceptional people management skills, program management, business and technology expertise and experience/comfort working in a highly matrixed environment

•    A passion for building programs that lead to engaged, profitable and long-term customer relationships; and,

•    Ability to quickly build credibility and rapport with the sales leadership and their field and channel sales organizations.

Education

An undergraduate degree is required.  An advanced degree, ideally MBA, is highly desirable.