Content Operations Strategy Manager, CNN

Your New Role…

The Content Operations Strategy Manager serves as a strategic and operational partner to the VP of Content Operations, helping to shape, communicate, and execute a unified content operating model across CNN. You will play a central role in building and reinforcing the overarching strategic narrative that ties together workflow modernization, portfolio planning, cross‑functional alignment, and day‑to‑day execution across a large, matrixed content ecosystem.

You’ll combine business strategy, structured problem-solving, storytelling, and operational rigor to help CNN scale streaming-first, multiplatform content production. You will work across editorial, product, technology, growth, marketing, data, finance, and commercial teams to support new ways of working, create clarity, and drive performance.

This is an ideal role for someone who is analytical, curious, organized, and energized by translating strategy into practical, repeatable systems.

Your Role Accountabilities…

Strategic Narrative, Insights & Executive Communication

• Partner closely with the VP of Content Operations to develop and maintain the enterprise-wide content operations narrative that brings strategic priorities to life.

• Craft executive-ready presentations, briefings, and materials that simplify complexity and influence senior leaders.

• Convert operational data, performance trends, workflow observations, and partner inputs into compelling stories that guide decision-making.

• Maintain and evolve core documentation that reinforces strategic clarity, including operating principles, strategy briefs, FAQs, and playbooks.

Operational Strategy & Enterprise Planning

• Support the development of multi-platform operating models, content governance frameworks, and decision-rights structures.

• Work with the VP and cross-functional partners to translate content strategy into quarterly and weekly operational plans, connecting missions, resourcing, deadlines, and deliverables.

• Contribute to prioritization mechanisms such as content medaling, portfolio reviews, and cross-team workflow forums.

• Support structured intake and evaluation of new content initiatives, surfacing implications, risks, and resource needs.

Execution of Strategic Initiatives

• Help structure, analyze, and run cross-functional projects that accelerate content workflows, improve operational discipline, or unlock new growth opportunities.

• Conduct data-driven analysis to understand cycle time bottlenecks, resource gaps, production inefficiencies, and multi-platform performance.

• Partner with Product, Tech, and Operations to identify workflow improvements, automation opportunities, and tooling enhancements that enable frictionless execution.

• Support development and rollout of content optimization standards, experimentation frameworks, and performance feedback loops.

Governance, Forums & Operating Rhythms

• Prepare materials and recommendations for content planning, MBRs and QBRs, and operational reviews.

• Ensure decisions, dependencies, risks, and next steps are clearly documented and circulated.

• Build repeatable templates, dashboards, and frameworks that improve the efficiency and clarity of cross-functional forums.

• Reinforce the integration of performance, audience, and experimentation insights across all touchpoints.

Cross-Functional Partnership & Influence

• Build trusted relationships across Global News, Enterprise, Longform, Media Operations, Growth, Marketing, Product, Tech, Data, Finance, and Brand.

• Anticipate and escalate risks early; help unlock blockers across teams by providing clarity, context, or recommended pathways.

Qualifications & Experience…

Required

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience; advanced degree a plus.

• 3–5+ years in strategy, operations, consulting, digital media, or relevant analytical roles.

• Proven ability to analyze complex information, structure ambiguous problems, and synthesize insights for leadership.

• Strong written, visual, and verbal communication skills, including experience preparing C‑level materials.

• Facility with data, including dashboards, KPIs, and experimentation results, and ability to translate metrics into recommendations.

• Experience collaborating across matrixed teams and managing competing priorities.

• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and comfortable operating in fast-paced, evolving environments.

Nice to Haves

• Experience in streaming, digital publishing, multiplatform media, or newsroom operations.

• Background in operating model design, organizational transformation, or change adoption.

• Familiarity with content production workflows, newsroom systems, CMS tools, automation, or audience measurement platforms.

• SQL, Tableau or Looker, or data visualization experience, with comfort manipulating and interpreting data.

• Experience supporting senior executives or partnering directly with leadership.

• Exposure to subscription models, Free and Pay execution, or experimentation-driven cultures.

• Ability to anticipate second-order effects and connect decisions to broader strategic priorities.

• Comfort operating with incomplete information and shaping clarity for others.

What Success Looks Like

• The VP of Content Operations is consistently leveraged at the right altitude because you deliver clarity, synthesis, and structure upstream.

• A clear, cohesive, and widely adopted strategic narrative around content operations and new ways of working.

• Improved operational discipline and transparency across resource planning, pipelines, and performance reviews.

• Strong cross-functional trust and a reputation for bringing clarity, calm, and solutions to complex environments.

• Better visibility into priorities, decisions, timelines, and resource implications for content workstreams.

• Tangible improvements in workflow efficiency, cycle time, and multi-platform content delivery.

Cultural Attributes

The ideal candidate…

• Is a systems thinker who can zoom out to the enterprise level and zoom in to operational details.

• Leads with clarity and calm, especially when others are navigating ambiguity.

• Seeks to simplify, not complicate.

• Is energized by making complex processes easier for others.

• Is a constructive challenger who can influence without authority.

• Thrives in collaborative environments and values partnership over ownership.

• Operates with curiosity, humility, and a bias for action.