Managing Editor

---

Job description

Salary: Competitive, DoE

Law Business Research is an award-winning global provider of legal content and business intelligence for the legal and intellectual property markets. We create essential and unique information for our subscribers, who are drawn from over 100 countries around the world, via our global brands. With a strong platform for international growth, and a reputation for creating outstanding content, we can offer individuals an intellectually stimulating work environment that puts global legal and intellectual property issues at the heart of our business.

We support a diverse workforce and inclusive workplace, and welcome applications from different backgrounds.

The Managing Editor oversees the team and operations for five of our successful group of platforms which each serve a niche legal marketplace. Each publication has a similar over-arching structure, offering digital subscription content, events, directories and paid-for external content, but are also individualised around the requirements of their audience. Reporting to the group content director, the role is a very senior position in our editorial team, with direct and indirect reports of approx. 30 journalists in London, Washington, DC and Hong Kong.

You will lead the team in producing the highest-level quality content for our audiences, ensuring that the brand teams are in the best position they can be to serve our clients. You will guide the editors, your direct reports, in crafting a brand-level editorial strategy which creates growth and which maps to the group content strategy. You will ensure they can build high-performing teams which have the skills and resources they need to do their jobs excellently.

You understand the value of a data-led strategy to improve editorial quality and output, and can craft the right brand-level KPIs to enable it. You can bring the teams with you in embedding change, driving growth but also ensuring stability and engagement across the group. You can act as the point person for the editorial teams internally, not only ensuring other teams access the knowledge they need, but also ensuring quality of content remains paramount.

You can also act as an ambassador for our content externally - not as a subject matter expert within any of our niches, but as a representative to our clients of the excellence of our content and editorial teams and output.

Your remit is these platforms: IAM, covering the international patent market; Global Competition Review, covering antitrust law and policy worldwide; Global Data Review, which analyses the law and regulation of the use and trade of data around the world; Latin Lawyer, which covers business law for the Latin American region; and World Trademark Review, covering trademark issues for companies and law firms.

Key accountabilities

• Operationalise the content strategy for our legal intelligence platforms as defined by the content director. Work with the editors of each publication to understand how to best mould the group strategy to each platform, and define an annual roadmap to achieve it.
• Develop strong cross-organisational relationships - with product, marketing, sales, production and customer success - to plan, prioritise and schedule necessary work across the platform set.
• Build a high-performance culture across the team by improving recruitment and retention, career development, coaching and training
• Embed a data-led strategy to improve the quality of our content by defining and continuously improving KPIs and reporting, working with the editors to understand what data is required to form the right brand-level editorial strategy
• Coordinate brand-level content strategies across the revenue streams (subscriptions, paid-for content, events and directories) to ensure consistency and that opportunities are maximised
• Maximise growth in our paid-for content and events by enabling expert content input from across the editorial team, working with our commercial and events production teams
• Ensure operational efficiency through careful planning of the content schedule and roadmap, working with our production operations team
• Set, and then meet, budget targets for headcount, travel, training and other costs which ensure quality and growth but also minimise costs
• Act as an ambassador both internally and externally to both reinforce and demonstrate the quality of our content set

Key skills

• Very strong leadership skills
• A deep understanding of B2B and professional content provision, how to create the right content for professional audiences, and how to effectively monetise it
• A strong journalist in your own regard, you know what good content is and how to recognise it, and how to train others to do so too
• An understanding of how training, mentoring and coaching can improve quality across the editorial team, and implement a plan to achieve it
• Naturally a strong communicator, both written and verbal
• You are organised and structured, able to work well in a multi-brand, multi-deadline environment, and able to support others in developing a structured approach too
• Ability to role model LBR values and behaviours

Experience

• 10+years content experience, including in senior positions in professional services or B2B content
• Experience in newsrooms is desirable
• Knowledge of and experience in legal markets and content is desirable
• International experience and outlook
• Demonstrable experience in change management, preferably in content organisations
• Experience in managing large teams, ideally cross-border
• Post-graduate journalism qualification is desirable

In return we can offer you a rewarding career with personal and professional development in addition to a competitive salary with an excellent benefits package that includes:

• 25 days holiday
• Private healthcare
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Season ticket loan
• Gym allowance
• Pension
• Life Assurance

To apply, please complete the application form with a cover letter explaining why you are suitable for this role via the APPLY button below. We look forward to receiving your application.