Manager Publisher Relations

Position Overview

Join the Follett Team, where employees are valued, respected, and offered career paths throughout its many campus locations.

Follett Higher Education is a leading educational service provider and omnichannel retailer that provides students, faculty and staff, parents, and fans with the course materials, learning tools, and retail services needed to successfully support the collegiate journey. Follett Higher Education supports over 6 million students through its 1,100 physical and 1,750 eCommerce campus stores across North America.

The Manager of Publisher Relations will identify, validate, and implement current and new opportunities to support Follett's course materials strategy. The position is responsible for projects and communications involving Follett's content providers, supporting all content delivery methods, and enabling Follett ACCESS success and growth. This position will understand the business needs, create solutions, and obtain the intellectual property required to meet company objectives. In partnership with the Director & Vice President, Publisher Relations, the Manager will create, implement, and manage effective plans, product placement, and strategies to drive and enhance sales of course materials products and services. This role will provide problem resolutions and escalations for the overall course materials category. This role will partner and collaborate with multiple stakeholders within Follett.

Responsibilities

• Build new and strengthen existing publisher relationships and collaborations. Lead communication and manage publisher projects with assigned current and prospective publishers regarding print content, digital content, Follett ACCESS, pricing terms, product availability, etc.
• Create and maintain vendor account management tools and standard operating procedures to enable accurate and up-to-date vendors, contacts, and business model records. Ensure timely and accurate communication of business model pricing strategies to internal teams to ensure all needed information is provided for proper vendor profile setup.
• Provide publisher-level expertise to internal stakeholders and be the publisher champion for Follett ACCESS, product, and operations teams. Translate and articulate publisher needs and priorities in order to align, where possible, with the goals of relevant internal stakeholders.
• Provide timely responses to publisher inquiries and concerns. Oversee questions about digital sales and publisher print rental reporting and manage interactions with publishers regarding sales reporting questions and follow-up.
• Execute special projects as assigned.

• Bachelor's Degree in a related field or equivalent experience.
• 3-5 years of relevant experience working with publishers and/or content providers.
• Ability to manage complex problems, using curiosity to solve them.
• Possess strong business acumen.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience managing projects.
• Advanced proficiency in MS Excel, Access, and PowerPoint.
• Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated history of making sound business decisions.
• Higher education publishing experiences are a plus.