Transformation Director, Academic
- Cambridge University Press & Assessment
- Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
- Feb 28, 2026
Full time
Education
Job Description
Transformation Director, Cambridge University Press
Salary: £76,000 - £104,500 plus competitive benefits
Location: Cambridge, UK - Hybrid
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time 35 hours per week
Lead the creation of a new Transformation Management Office
We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.
Are you passionate about driving transformation, shaping organisational change, and enabling teams to deliver meaningful impact? We're looking for a highly skilled Transformation Director to lead our new Transformation Management Office (TMO) within Cambridge University Press, the Academic publishing division of Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
About the role
Academic publishing is undergoing a period of significant change. Evolving customer needs, digital transformation, new business models and the rise of AI are reshaping how we work and how we deliver value. To ensure we remain competitive and continue to deliver against our strategy, we are seeking an exceptional Transformation Director to lead our new Transformation Management Office and accelerate this evolution.
This role goes far beyond oversight - you will be a strategist, delivery expert, and "player-coach," intervening directly in high-risk areas where deeper leadership is needed. You must have the confidence and credibility to operate with Board-level stakeholders and the ability to influence decision making across a large, matrixed organisation.
Strategic Leadership
You will be the architect and storyteller of our academic transformation, owning a clear, compelling narrative that connects long-term strategy to real world outcomes. You'll translate this narrative into a robust roadmap and investment case, ensuring priorities are clear, funded, and deliverable.
As leader of the Transformation Management Office, you'll build and inspire a high performing team, working in close partnership with the Central PMO to ensure academic transformation is fully aligned with wider organisational priorities.
Delivery & Execution
You'll establish and govern the academic transformation portfolio, accelerating delivery while maintaining strong control. Chairing TMO delivery forums, you'll drive decisive action, remove barriers, and focus relentlessly on outcomes.
Where delivery needs an extra push, you'll lead senior level programme "deep dives", providing hands on intervention and direction. You'll raise organisational delivery maturity by embedding pragmatic frameworks, coaching leaders, and partnering with the Academic Design Pod to ensure solutions are scalable, coherent, and fully integrated. You'll also oversee change management, ensuring new ways of working are not just launched but embedded and sustained.
Value, Finance & Governance
You'll provide clear, confident Board-level visibility on performance, risk, and return on investment. With accountability for financial control across the transformation portfolio and cost centre, you'll enforce rigorous business case development and benefits realisation tracking.
You'll hold delivery leaders accountable for value creation, ensuring transformation outcomes align directly to P&L impact and strategic priorities.
Stakeholder Leadership & Culture
Success in this role depends on trust and influence. You'll build confidence with senior stakeholders and cultivate a culture defined by pace, transparency, and delivery discipline. You'll champion consistent design and delivery standards and lead impactful TMO communications and change strategies across the Academic community.
This position has been classified as a hybrid role, requiring the selected candidate to typically spend 40-60% of their time collaborating and connecting face-to-face at their dedicated location. Aside from our hybrid principles, other flexible working requests will be considered from the first day of employment, including other work arrangements should you require adjustments due to a disability or long-term health condition.
About You
Essential Knowledge & Experience
If you meet the above minimum requirements, we encourage you to apply. Your application will be even stronger if you can also demonstrate the following desirable criteria:
We are a Disability Confident (DC) employer that is committed to equality and inclusion ensuring our recruitment process is accessible to all. The DC scheme's Offer of an Interview commitment applies to applicants who opt in, and disclose a disability or a long-term health condition, and best meet the minimum criteria for the role. In instances where interviewing all qualifying candidates is not practicable, we prioritise those who best meet the minimum criteria, as we would for applicants who do not have a disability or long-term health condition.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is an approved UK employer for the sponsorship of eligible roles and applicants under the Skilled Worker visa route. Please refer to the gov.uk website for guidance to understand your own eligibility based on the role you are applying for.
Rewards and benefits
We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible rewards package , featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including:
We aim to support candidates by making our interview process clear and transparent. The closing date for all applications will be 15 March 2026. We will review applications on an ongoing basis, and shortlisted candidates can expect interviews to take place from week commencing 23 March 2026.
If you are shortlisted and progressed through the stages, you can expect:
Please note that successful applicants will be subject to satisfactory background checks including DBS due to working in a regulated industry.
Why join us
Joining us is your opportunity to pursue potential. You will belong to a collaborative team that is exploring new and better ways to serve students, teachers and researchers across the globe - for the benefit of individuals, society and the world. Sharing our mission will inspire your own growth, development and progress, in an environment which embraces difference, change and aspiration.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to being a place where anyone can enjoy a successful career, where it is safe to speak up, and where we learn continuously to improve together. We welcome applications from all candidates, regardless of demographic characteristics (age, disability, educational attainment, ethnicity, gender, marital status, neurodiversity, religion, sex, gender identity and sexual identity), cultural, or social class/background.
We believe better outcomes come through diversity of thought, background and approach. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and communities, actively seeking to employ people from a wide range of different communities.
Salary: £76,000 - £104,500 plus competitive benefits
Location: Cambridge, UK - Hybrid
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full time 35 hours per week
Lead the creation of a new Transformation Management Office
We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.
Are you passionate about driving transformation, shaping organisational change, and enabling teams to deliver meaningful impact? We're looking for a highly skilled Transformation Director to lead our new Transformation Management Office (TMO) within Cambridge University Press, the Academic publishing division of Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
About the role
Academic publishing is undergoing a period of significant change. Evolving customer needs, digital transformation, new business models and the rise of AI are reshaping how we work and how we deliver value. To ensure we remain competitive and continue to deliver against our strategy, we are seeking an exceptional Transformation Director to lead our new Transformation Management Office and accelerate this evolution.
This role goes far beyond oversight - you will be a strategist, delivery expert, and "player-coach," intervening directly in high-risk areas where deeper leadership is needed. You must have the confidence and credibility to operate with Board-level stakeholders and the ability to influence decision making across a large, matrixed organisation.
Strategic Leadership
You will be the architect and storyteller of our academic transformation, owning a clear, compelling narrative that connects long-term strategy to real world outcomes. You'll translate this narrative into a robust roadmap and investment case, ensuring priorities are clear, funded, and deliverable.
As leader of the Transformation Management Office, you'll build and inspire a high performing team, working in close partnership with the Central PMO to ensure academic transformation is fully aligned with wider organisational priorities.
Delivery & Execution
You'll establish and govern the academic transformation portfolio, accelerating delivery while maintaining strong control. Chairing TMO delivery forums, you'll drive decisive action, remove barriers, and focus relentlessly on outcomes.
Where delivery needs an extra push, you'll lead senior level programme "deep dives", providing hands on intervention and direction. You'll raise organisational delivery maturity by embedding pragmatic frameworks, coaching leaders, and partnering with the Academic Design Pod to ensure solutions are scalable, coherent, and fully integrated. You'll also oversee change management, ensuring new ways of working are not just launched but embedded and sustained.
Value, Finance & Governance
You'll provide clear, confident Board-level visibility on performance, risk, and return on investment. With accountability for financial control across the transformation portfolio and cost centre, you'll enforce rigorous business case development and benefits realisation tracking.
You'll hold delivery leaders accountable for value creation, ensuring transformation outcomes align directly to P&L impact and strategic priorities.
Stakeholder Leadership & Culture
Success in this role depends on trust and influence. You'll build confidence with senior stakeholders and cultivate a culture defined by pace, transparency, and delivery discipline. You'll champion consistent design and delivery standards and lead impactful TMO communications and change strategies across the Academic community.
This position has been classified as a hybrid role, requiring the selected candidate to typically spend 40-60% of their time collaborating and connecting face-to-face at their dedicated location. Aside from our hybrid principles, other flexible working requests will be considered from the first day of employment, including other work arrangements should you require adjustments due to a disability or long-term health condition.
About You
Essential Knowledge & Experience
- Experience of setting up and/or running a TMO in another organisation
- Experience of design and delivery of complex, multi year portfolios in large organisations
- Deep expertise across transformation disciplines (programme management, operating models, CI)
- Awareness of GenAI and automation opportunities and risks
- Broad working knowledge across technology, data, operations, commercial and customer experience
- Experience working with Board-level stakeholders and influencing strategic decisions
- Demonstrable leadership of high-impact programmes and large-scale portfolios
- Strong financial literacy and experience with benefits realisation and cost management
- Strategic thinking with the ability to translate vision into pragmatic action
- Strong decision making in resource-constrained environments
- Collaborative leadership in matrix structures
- Excellent communication, advisory and influencing skills
- Data-driven approach to decision-making and performance measurement
If you meet the above minimum requirements, we encourage you to apply. Your application will be even stronger if you can also demonstrate the following desirable criteria:
- Strong understanding of the academic publishing landscape and digital transformation trends
- Agile or formal PM qualifications (e.g. PRINCE2)
- Lean/Six Sigma or equivalent continuous improvement qualification
- Change management certification
We are a Disability Confident (DC) employer that is committed to equality and inclusion ensuring our recruitment process is accessible to all. The DC scheme's Offer of an Interview commitment applies to applicants who opt in, and disclose a disability or a long-term health condition, and best meet the minimum criteria for the role. In instances where interviewing all qualifying candidates is not practicable, we prioritise those who best meet the minimum criteria, as we would for applicants who do not have a disability or long-term health condition.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is an approved UK employer for the sponsorship of eligible roles and applicants under the Skilled Worker visa route. Please refer to the gov.uk website for guidance to understand your own eligibility based on the role you are applying for.
Rewards and benefits
We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible rewards package , featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including:
- 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays
- Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance
- Discretionary annual bonus
- Group personal pension scheme
- Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary
- Green travel schemes
We aim to support candidates by making our interview process clear and transparent. The closing date for all applications will be 15 March 2026. We will review applications on an ongoing basis, and shortlisted candidates can expect interviews to take place from week commencing 23 March 2026.
If you are shortlisted and progressed through the stages, you can expect:
- First stage virtual interview via MS Teams. You will be provided with a brief to complete a role related task which will need to be returned by email in advance of your interview.
- Final stage interview: in-person at our offices in Cambridge.
Please note that successful applicants will be subject to satisfactory background checks including DBS due to working in a regulated industry.
Why join us
Joining us is your opportunity to pursue potential. You will belong to a collaborative team that is exploring new and better ways to serve students, teachers and researchers across the globe - for the benefit of individuals, society and the world. Sharing our mission will inspire your own growth, development and progress, in an environment which embraces difference, change and aspiration.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to being a place where anyone can enjoy a successful career, where it is safe to speak up, and where we learn continuously to improve together. We welcome applications from all candidates, regardless of demographic characteristics (age, disability, educational attainment, ethnicity, gender, marital status, neurodiversity, religion, sex, gender identity and sexual identity), cultural, or social class/background.
We believe better outcomes come through diversity of thought, background and approach. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and communities, actively seeking to employ people from a wide range of different communities.
About Cambridge University Press & Assessment