Category Development Manager

Summary

Join Guild as a Category Development Manager and become a core member of the Strategy & Marketplace team. Lead the strategy, development, and improvement of a portfolio of learning programs. Act as a subject matter expert, supporting internal teams and working with employers and learning partners. Define the vision for category growth and manage cross-functional efforts to enhance performance in areas such as outcomes, access, and innovation. Contribute to Guild's growth, particularly in new verticals. The role involves acting as a general manager/product manager for your categories, setting priorities, designing and executing analytical projects, collaborating with cross-functional partners, and building processes to share insights. Guild offers a competitive compensation package and a variety of benefits.

Requirements

• Strategic Thinking - Ability to analyze complex issues, identify root causes, and develop effective plans to achieve meaningful goals with limited resources. This involves considering various perspectives, evaluating options, and creating frameworks to guide decision-making and action. Thinking strategically involves evaluating risks and options, and creating frameworks for decision-making that balance immediate needs with future objectives
• Analytical Thinking - You have demonstrated the ability to analyze and synthesize information, including quantitative and qualitative data. You’ve understood complex issues, identified options, and supported sound decision-making. Strong ability to interpret data, recognize patterns, and draw insights that inform strategic choices
• Impact & Influence - You have built and leveraged relationships to gain support, create positive outcomes, and drive organizational success. Ability to develop trust, demonstrate credibility, and effectively communicate to influence decisions and actions across various levels of the organization & also with external stakeholders/customers
• Adaptability - You are adaptable and can work effectively in ambiguous or changing situations with diverse individuals and groups
• Operational Rigor - You are a careful steward of your investments, always seeking to work smarter and build systems that enable the entire Category Development team to focus on its highest impact work

Responsibilities

• Act as a “general manager”/product manager and “voice” for your categories. With support from Category Development leadership, help drive key decisions on how your portfolio of programs evolves. Understand what’s in the categories, how they’re performing, growing, and differentiating Guild, to best meet employer and learner needs
• Set the annual and quarterly priorities for how to optimize category value and improve category performance across coverage, outcomes, access, and innovation
• Design & execute analytical projects to clarify strategic questions or validate business cases for category initiatives. Articulate hypotheses, scope work, own analyses and influence partners in Analytics, Learning Partner Services (Account Management), and other cross-functional teams to build perspectives
• Work closely with partners from Pre-sales, Marketing, Product, Employer Partner Services (Acct. Mgmt.), Business Development, Operations, and more, to gather critical market insight, provide subject matter expertise and share guidance on recommended solutions & approaches
• Build processes & collateral to enable quick and effective sharing of insights and support to be consumed across the organization

Preferred Qualifications

• Self-starter attitude with an entrepreneurial approach; able to independently identify problems and solutions, and run complex projects from start to finish
• A love for learning; able to rapidly familiarize yourself with new topics and thrive in unfamiliar territories
• Awareness of Guild's business and deep curiosity about the higher education, skilling and career mobility landscape
• Experience contributing to market expansion efforts, particularly in Healthcare & Manufacturing, Logistics or Transportation
• 3+ years of experience in strategy, consulting, product development or other relevant work

Benefits

• Access to low-cost, high-quality health care options through Cigna and Kaiser (due to coverage limitations, Kaiser is currently only available in CA & CO)
• Access to a 401k to help save for the future
• Open vacation policy for employees to rest and recharge
• 8 days of fully-paid sick leave, to take the time to heal and or recover
• Family-friendly benefits, including 12 weeks of parental leave for non-birthing parents and 18-20 weeks for birthing parents; 4-week ramp-up period for when employees return from a leave of 6 weeks or more; as well as employer-paid short-term and long-term disability, employer-sponsored life insurance, fertility and caregiving benefits
• Well-rounded wellness benefits including free and low cost mental health resources and financial wellbeing support services
• Education benefits and tuition assistance to help your future development and growth