Commercial and Trading Performance Manager

About us

The Independent is an online news publisher that was established in 1986 as a national newspaper independent of party political affiliations or proprietorial influence. In 2016, The Independent became a fully digital publisher, moving away from print in pursuit of sustainability, and to safeguard its values and journalism for the future.

The Independent has always thrived through innovation and change. It was the first British newspaper to add a Saturday magazine; the first to give photography the same prestige as a news copy; the first to challenge the Westminster lobby system of closed briefings; the first broadsheet to move to the more compact ‘tabloid’ format; the first to launch a concise quality compact paper; and the first – and only – major newspaper to pull off a successful transformation to fully digital publishing.

Through The Independent, Independent TV, eCommerce, indy100, subscriptions and other ‘reader revenues’, The Independent plans to continue the work of many decades, bringing much-needed independent journalism to over 100 million unique global visitors a month, make its voice ever louder and more insistent the world over.

We have an international editorial team with our main offices in London and New York.

The role

The Independent is constantly evolving as a data-informed, diversified media business. A Commercial & Trading Performance Manager is needed to support with the continuing development and growth of The Independent’s Reader Revenues propositions and Anonymous-to-Known (A2K) strategy for collecting first party data, in the UK, US and ROW. This role spans our reader subscription base as well as those who contribute and the registered user base and will be critical in ensuring consistent and profitable growth.

The team

The Independent Data & Marketing team supports the business in making data-informed decisions which help to grow revenues, drive profit and achieve company objectives.

The Data team members provide reader and newsroom analysis, reporting and insights for The Independent across a spectrum of stakeholders in the business. The Marketing team is responsible for defining how we attract, engage and retain our anonymous and known customer base, and for the implementation and delivery of marketing activities and tactics to achieve these goals. The wider team are also responsible for first party data acquisition, segmentation and monetisation together with insights for brand solution campaign optimisations. The team is also responsible for data privacy.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

• We champion diversity in our teams and in our reporting. As a growing and global brand, we must have a workforce that’s more representative of our readers, viewers, clients and partners, and a workplace that creates a sense of belonging for everyone
• We are committed to hiring and developing a diverse workforce regardless of background, and we support our people to thrive in their careers here.

The Independent is an equal opportunities employer, if you require any reasonable adjustments to complete your application, please do not hesitate to advise us accordingly.

About you

Key responsibilities and accountabilities

• Ownership of acquisition, churn and net growth performance and forecasts across the reader revenues portfolio and communicating these effectively to SLT and C-suite teams as well as across the broader business.
• Develop a deep understanding of the drivers of trading performance at a customer segment level, working collaboratively with the wider team to ensure that all available levers are utilised to optimise customer & P&L performance.
• Ensure the trading performance management structure runs effectively, overseeing and owning trading meetings and insight packs, and ensure that the implications of week-to-week performance movements are incorporated into the forecast and remedial actions triggered.
• Use expertise to deliver accurate forecasts and ensure an accurate outlook.
• Identify new opportunities and make tactical and strategic recommendations across data, marketing, product, editorial and finance teams to drive the best possible outcome to meet short, mid and long term goals and targets.

Essential skills and experience

• Experience and proven track record in a high performing commercial/trading team.
• Experience working across user acquisition, retention and overall base management.
• Highly motivated, results orientated.
• Comfortable working across multiple business functions and the ability to assess both the benefits and risks of new initiatives to the wider business.
• Adaptable and resilient – ability to thrive in fast paced environments that can be often linked to a fast moving news cycle.

Our values – you will deliver across all our values

Inclusive : We champion diversity in our teams and in our reporting. Working as a team, we put transparency and effective communication at the heart of everything we do.

Innovative: From the very beginning, The Independent has been breaking the mould. We take risks and are always looking to try new ideas in pursuit of excellence.

Independent: Nobody tells us what to think; we make up our own minds and aren’t afraid to do things differently. Like our readers, we value honesty and integrity above outside influences.