Managing Editor, Digital Products

The American Chemical Society is the world’s largest scientific membership association and one of the top five scholarly publishers in the world. The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society provides to its members and the worldwide scientific community a comprehensive collection of high-quality information products and services for the practice and advancement of the chemical sciences. The Division publishes 80+ high-quality peer-reviewed journals that cover the breadth of chemistry and allied fields, as well as a weekly magazine, peer reviewed digital books and reference works.

Within the ACS Publications Division, the Global Editorial Operations team performs four main functions:

• Editorial Services, charged with overseeing the editorial operations for 800+ offices, developing and implementing policies and strategies to ensure that high quality peer review continues to be a cornerstone of ACS Publications, at scale,

• Researcher Products & Engagement, charged with overseeing author, reviewer, and editor products, including ChemRxiv, ACS’s Author and Reviewer Labs, the ACS Publishing Center, Editor Hub, revenue generating Supplementary Covers, and our suite of for-fee authoring services. The team is charged with developing products and services to support editorial stakeholders, including all editors within the ACS journals portfolio and partner journals.

• Publishing Integrity Office, charged with overseeing publications ethics within the ACS portfolio, advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect (DEIR) practices, and the development and management of data validation and standards.

• ACS eBooks & eReferences, charged with publishing digital books and references which include ACS In Focus (digital learning primers), ACS eBooks (edited works on a focus topic), ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication (the definitive source for scholarly writing), and ACS Reagents (high-purity standards.)

Position Summary & Accountabilities

Reporting to the Publisher, Global Editorial Operations, the Managing Editor directly manages a team of 5-7 director reports (contractors) as well as contracted vendor resources, and oversee key areas of activity for ACS eBooks & eReferences.  Specifically, the incumbent has management oversight of ACS In Focus, ACS eBooks, ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication, and ACS Reagents. 

The managing editor oversees the day-to-day development and delivery of digital  content for chemists in the academic and corporate space.  As managing editor, you collaborate with authors, editors, reviewers, and staff, as well as supervise in-house and contract editors, illustrators, and administrative staff.  Additionally, you ensure channel strategies are considered in how the content is created to optimize our end-user impact.  Our ideal candidate has experience as a customer-focused managing editor for long-form, rich, web-based content made up of a variety of media – text, video, and illustrations – and formats- epub, HTML and PDF.  While any sort of exposure to science is not a requirement, an interest in science is a must.

Core responsibilities include:

• Maintain high-level contact with authors throughout the content creation phase, providing information to ensure they reach their target readership, take advantage of web-based content features, and understand the editorial workflow;
• Build and nurture a team of contract manuscript editors and illustrators to help authors develop and finalize their content for production;
• Create and manage editorial content creation workflow and schedules for 75-100 works; inform stakeholders of any variance;
• Resolve issues as they arise and notify product owners when necessary;
• Collaborate with product owners to ensure works are market-based, high-quality publications;
• Manage costs against pre-agreed budgets;
• Post-publication, analyze performance metrics across properties to quantify results;
• Implement best practices, workflows, tools, and templates to maximize the efficiency and quality of the publishing process.

 Education, Experience and Technical Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent work experience with 7+ years of relevant experience in an academic or industrial setting as a managing editor or project manager for complex and high volume digital publications
• Minimum 5 years of supervisory/leadership experience
• Demonstrated experience with planning and coordinating people, content, and editorial processes in deadline-oriented environments
• Curious and able to engage with academic STEM authors
• Strong author and customer-focused approach to decision-making and problem-solving
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills

ACS places a premium on employee growth and offers opportunities for training, continuing education, and industry networking opportunities.

ACS offers a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package, including a generous vacation plan, medical, dental, vision insurance plans, and employee savings and retirement plans.  Candidates for this position must be authorized to work in the United States and not require work authorization sponsorship by our company for this position now or in the future. 

This position will be primarily based in the Washington D.C. office. ACS employees work a hybrid work schedule, consisting of working onsite, three days per week. ACS employees are in the office on Tuesday and Wednesday with the third in-office day scheduled in consultation with the manager. While always welcome to work in the office, employees may work the other two days of the week from a location of their choice. New employees are immediately eligible for this hybrid work arrangement. ACS offers relocation assistance, if applicable.

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