Vice President, Publishing - Health Research

About Wolters Kluwer Health:

Healthcare professionals, students, and researchers around the globe are making important decisions every day about patient care and outcomes using our integrated solutions, premium content and productivity tools. Our solutions are focused in the areas of Clinical Decision Support, Clinical Drug Information, Patient Engagement, Clinical Terminologies, Clinical Surveillance, Nursing Education, Medical Education, Allied Health Education and Medical Research. Four market-centered business units to serve the needs of our diverse customer base.

Health Learning, Research and Practice helps clinicians deliver better patient outcomes through digital solutions for healthcare education, certification, reference and research in more than 140 countries. Our Ovid research platform is the #1 medical research platform in hospitals and medical schools, while our Lippincott brand is highly valued by doctors, nurses and allied health professionals. Our offerings range from print books to innovative technology-enabled solutions, such as virtual simulation and adaptive quizzing tools. We have a strong emphasize on creating expert solutions that combine subject matter expertise and technology to help drive better decisions faster.

This is a Hybrid role, requiring two days a week in a Wolters Kluwer office location.

About this role:

The Vice President, Publishing is responsible for the performance of over 350 proprietary and society journal titles. This executive role plays a critical leadership function in expanding our reach in Open Access (OA), deepening relationships with academic societies, and strengthening our proprietary journal portfolio through new journal launches and strategic acquisitions.

The ideal candidate brings a strong track record in STM publishing leadership, with demonstrated success in growing portfolios through new journal launches, innovation, partnership, and business acumen in a fast-evolving scholarly communications environment.

This position oversees approximately 90 FTEs in the US, UK, and India and reports to the SVP, GM of Health Research.

This role will oversee the overall journal product portfolio, focusing on strategies for content growth and quality. Responsible for expanding content organically and through title acquisitions, as well as driving innovation in content formats and distribution channels.

Success in this role requires innovative vision and leadership with a keen understanding of the market, as well as strong collaboration with key organizational partners in content operations, sales, product, technology, etc., to deliver against key strategic initiatives.

This role will be instrumental in shaping a strategy to further solidify Wolters Kluwer's position as a leading publisher, while driving growth, profitability, and innovation in the medical publishing field.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Portfolio Leadership:

• Set and execute a growth strategy for the medical and health journals portfolio across hybrid and full Open Access publishing models.

• Shape the long-term vision for the division, aligned with global trends in medical research, clinical practice, funder mandates and GenAI.

• Lead the portfolio through digital transformation, data-driven decision-making, and author researcher-centric service design.

• Set and execute strategy to grow submission and research article output at market level

Open Access Development:

• Without compromising quality standards of our product portfolio. drive sustainable growth in Open Access through journal flipping, new OA journal launches, and transparent author services.

• Monitor market trends and emerging OA competitors; identify whitespace opportunities for differentiation.

Society Publishing Partnerships:

• Build and nurture long-term strategic partnerships with leading medical and clinical societies.

• Identify, pitch, and secure new society publishing contracts, offering tailored publishing solutions and value-added analytics.

• Oversee society contract renewals, ensuring retention, revenue growth, and society, its authors and editors’ satisfaction

Proprietary Portfolio Growth:

• Develop and implement a plan to expand the proprietary journal portfolio through:

  • New journal launches in high-impact or emerging areas

  • Acquisitions of established titles or entire journal families, where aligned with strategic priorities.

• Build strong editorial boards and recruit top-tier editors to raise the profile and impact of the proprietary portfolio.

Leadership & Team Development:

• Lead a high-performing global team of Publishing Directors, Publishers and Editors,

• Lead and develop strong and sustainable talent globally in the publishing organization and build a cross functionally collaborative culture focused on solutions and innovation.

• Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and diversity within the team.

• Align publishing and operational KPIs with broader organizational goals.

• Build deep partnerships with product, technology, marketing and sales leaders as a key stakeholder on product development, GTM plans, pricing strategies, etc.

• Provide strategic direction to teams on 3rd party partnerships and CME/CE accreditation

• Represents Wolters Kluwer as an industry expert on societies, journal publishing and open access

Financial & Operational Management:

• Deliver against financials and achieve budgeted revenue and cost targets while optimizing operations to drive efficiency and cost savings.

• Set and manage multi-million-dollar P&Ls for the journal portfolio, driving revenue growth and margin improvement.

• Partner with editorial production, marketing, and technology teams to ensure operational excellence and author satisfaction.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities or Certifications:   

• Bachelor’s degree, MBA preferred

• 10+ years in managing publishing programs of scale and editorial management

• Deep and broad knowledge of proprietary medical and nursing information and society journals and relationships

• Strong knowledge of global scientific markets and the Open Access market, trends and operational management

• Excellent reputation with thought leaders and researchers in medicine and nursing

• An experienced leader in driving teams to the right outcomes while building strong talent and healthy team cultures.

• Strong analytic mindset with experience leveraging data to drive the right decisions

• Ability to build strong collaborative partnerships with peer organizations and clients

• Excellent communication & presentation skills for client, executive, and employee audiences delivering the right messages at the right times with tact.

• Demonstrated ability to work in a global organization with distinct divisions and shared services requiring both independent and collaborative work

• Up to 30% travel with a strong focus on Society acquisitions and relationships

Applicants may be required to appear onsite at a Wolters Kluwer office as part of the recruitment process.

Compensation: