Job Title: Head of Product & Systems Support, Research Publishing, Publishing (m/f/d)
Location: Heidelberg or London
Application deadline: Monday 23rd of February 2026
About Springer Nature
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About the Role
This is a senior leadership role with end-to-end accountability for the product vision, governance and continuous evolution of core editorial and customer relationship systems across Publishing Performance and Intelligence, part of SN Research Publishing Division.
As Head of Product & Systems Support, you will establish and lead a newly formed global team responsible for Salesforce and its integrated ecosystem, supporting critical workflows such as scientific topic acquisition, editor screening, editor recruitment and integrity processes. These systems currently serve a rapidly growing, global user base of ~700 colleagues across multiple portfolios, functions and regions.
Success in this role requires outstanding stakeholder leadership. You will operate at the intersection of business strategy, product delivery and operational execution, working in close partnership with senior business owners responsible for Collections Acquisition, Editor Recruitment and Research Integrity. A core early focus will be to build trust and establish structured, transparent engagement with business users, superusers, IT development teams, analysts and support functions.
This role is central to enabling the scalable growth of Springer Nature’s Open Access strategy, ensuring our systems, data and user experience are robust, trusted and future ready.
This role will be in our Heidelberg or London offices on a hybrid working model.
Role Responsibilities:
Group Product and systems leadership
1. Partner closely with senior business owners in to balance short-term operational needs with long-term platform scalability and efficiency opportunity.
2. Own the strategic product roadmap for Salesforce and integrated editorial and content platforms across Research Publishing.
3. Lead structured discovery to map the full stakeholder landscape, identify competing needs, dependencies and risks, and translate them into clearly prioritised product outcomes.
4. Champion data governance, usability, and system integrity, ensuring high-quality data flows across interconnected platforms.
5. Drive simplification, standardisation and automation of workflows to improve efficiency and resilience at scale.
6. Hold budget responsibility for system licenses, vendor engagement, team capacity and development investment.
People leadership
7. Build, lead and develop a well-performing team of product managers, process excellence managers and systems support specialists (c. 5–6 FTE).
8. Establish a strong product mindset, clear accountability and outcome-driven ways of working.
9. Coach and mentor team members, supporting career development in a global, hybrid environment.
10. Create a culture of trust, transparency, continuous improvement and constructive challenge.
Stakeholder leadership and change management
11. Serve as a senior representative of Product & Systems Support in divisional and cross-group governance forums.
12. Build effective, trust-based relationships with business owners, superusers, publishing leadership, IT delivery teams and external partners.
13. Proactively manage expectations, dependencies and trade-offs, particularly in high-pressure or ambiguous situations.
14. Communicate priorities, progress, risks and system changes with clarity, consistency and credibility.
Agile delivery and continuous improvement
15. Implement and mature Agile ways of working, drawing on frameworks such as SAFe, Scrum and Kanban as appropriate to context.
16. Lead backlog prioritisation, sprint planning and cross-team coordination with internal IT and development partners.
17. Define and monitor KPIs covering system adoption, workflow efficiency, data quality and user satisfaction.
18. Ensure effective user enablement through training, documentation and structured support models.
19. Identify opportunities for innovation, automation and AI-enabled improvements across platforms and processes.
Experience, Skills & Qualifications:
Education and experience
20. Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent experience) in Business, Publishing, Information Systems, Data or a related field.
21. Extensive leadership experience in product management, platform ownership, editorial systems, operations or process optimisation, ideally within STM or complex knowledge-driven organisations.
22. Experience owning and evolving Salesforce or comparable enterprise CRM platforms, including integrations and data-heavy workflows.
23. Proven track record of senior stakeholder management in complex, global environments, including situations with misalignment or legacy challenges.
24. Experience building, scaling or transforming teams or functions.
25. Comfortable operating across strategic, tactical and operational levels.
26. Willingness to travel internationally.
Certifications (strongly preferred)
27. Agile certifications (SAFe, Scrum Master, Product Owner or equivalent)
28. Product management certification ( AIPMM or similar)
29. Project or programme management certification (PRINCE2, MSP or equivalent)
Skills
30. Strategic, structured thinker with strong prioritisation and decision-making capability
31. Highly credible communicator, able to influence without authority
32. Calm, resilient and pragmatic in complex stakeholder environments
33. Strong commitment to data quality, process discipline and user-centred design
34. Coaching-oriented leader with a collaborative, inclusive leadership style
Springer Nature Skills associated with this Job Profile include:
SN- Product Strategy & Execution, SN-Product and Service Knowledge, SN-Customer / User Requirements Discovery, SN-Adaptability, SN-Drives Vision and Purpose, SN-Resourcefulness, SN-Balances Stakeholder, SN-Manages Complexity, SN-Storytelling, SN-Project Management
At Springer Nature, we value the diversity of our teams and work to build an inclusive culture, where people are treated fairly and can bring their differences to work and thrive. We empower our colleagues and value their diverse perspectives as we strive to attract, nurture and develop the very best talent.
Springer Nature was awarded Diversity Team of the Year at the 2022 British Diversity Awards. Find out more about our DEI work here
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