Overview

C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) produces authoritative, award-winning journalism from around the world of chemistry, including research, education, industry, funding, and regulatory policy. It is published by the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society dedicated to a single discipline, and is widely considered one of the major benefits of membership. C&EN’s weekly magazine reaches more than 155,000 members of ACS in 150 countries, and its website receives more than 13 million page views per year.

We are seeking an Operations Director to lead a team of digital and print producers and copy editors tasked with ensuring every piece of editorial content C&EN creates is accurate, visually compelling and indispensable to our readers.

What you’ll do

• Oversee the day-to-day production operations of C&EN, ensuring the operations team meets the evolving production and copyediting needs of our different publishing channels while maintaining editorial standards of quality and accuracy.
• In collaboration with C&EN’s Editor in Chief, lead the continuous improvement of workflow efficiency and production quality across C&EN, facilitating experimentation with new production technologies to support growth.
• Foster an environment that drives innovation and guarantees C&EN remains at the cutting edge in terms of production capability.
• Monitor trends/emerging areas in reader habits/preferences and in publishing and adjust production workflows and technologies as needed.
• Serve as product owner for C&EN's delivery channels: cen.acs.org, mobile app, digital magazine, print magazine, and C&EN Global Enterprise edition. Lead business strategy for product maintenance, upgrade, and replacement to deliver highest value to C&EN readers while controlling internal cost. Oversee scope, timeline, and budget for projects related to C&EN distribution channels.
• Manage vendor relations and work with colleagues in finance on contract negotiation as well as invoice tracking and reconciliation. Keep C&EN’s Publisher abreast of developments relating to vendor interactions and contract negotiations. Create resourcing models with vendors and internal teams to build scale, paying particular attention to maintaining copyediting resources.
• Oversee upkeep of C&EN's SEO strategy and of the taxonomy that allows the classification and discoverability of C&EN content.
• Collaborate with colleagues across C&EN and beyond to implement tools and strategies designed to monitor C&EN’s production output and performance.

What you'll bring

• A college degree in chemistry or a related scientific field is preferable; newsroom experience is a must have.
• Strong leadership and management skills as well as experience leading a distributed, multidisciplinary team.
• Experience managing large projects in a fast-paced environment.
• Impeccable standards of editorial accuracy and quality
• Experience of digital and print production processes as well as a sound understanding of the technologies that support them (eg content management systems, etc)
• Creative thinker with an open mind to learn and explore new areas and opportunities.

About working at C&EN

ACS believes in the strength of diversity in all its forms, because inclusion of and respect for diverse people, experiences, and ideas lead to superior solutions to world challenges and advance chemistry as a global, multidisciplinary science. In turn, C&EN believes that to meet its mission to be the world’s go-to source of news about chemistry, our reporting and our newsroom must include diverse perspectives. Therefore, we strongly encourage people of color, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and members of other historically marginalized communities in the chemical sciences to apply.

Job location

This position will be primarily based in the D.C. office unless otherwise agreed upon. ACS offers hybrid work arrangement of three days per week working in the office and two days per week working remotely. New employees are immediately eligible for this hybrid work arrangement. ACS offers relocation assistance, if applicable.

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