Journals Commissioning and Development Editor
Persona Staff • Cape Town, South Africa
30+ days agoApply
Job description
Responsibilities:
- Develop and implement journal commissioning and development plans for a portfolio of open access journal.
- Build strong relationships with Editors-in-Chief, Editorial Boards, society partners, and other academic stakeholder.
- Identify target research groups, and emerging subject areas to support journal growth.
- Drive initiatives to increase submissions, visibility, and community engagement.
- Conduct competitor and market analysis to identify risks, opportunities, and growth areas.
- Support the acquisition or initiation of new journals.
- Represent the company at conferences and other relevant academic events where required.
- Plan and support Editorial Board and Journal Oversight Committee meetings, including preparation of papers, meeting coordination, and minute-taking.
- Manage Editorial Board and committee terms, editorial profiles, and editor contract administration.
- Work with internal teams, including indexing, analytics, marketing, and publishing operations, to ensure coordinated execution.
- Support journal contract renewals and broader publishing strategy projects.
- Coach or guide junior colleagues where required by business needs.
Requirements:
- A degree-level qualification, with a masterâs degree advantageous.
- Experience in scholarly publishing, ideally with responsibility for journal development, commissioning, or portfolio growth.
- A sound understanding of the peer review process.
- Experience building productive relationships with editors, boards, societies, or other external stakeholders.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Good judgement, analytical ability, and commercial awareness.
- The ability to manage multiple projects, deadlines, and competing priorities.
- A structured, organised, and proactive working style.
- Confidence working across teams in a fast-paced, deadline driven environment.
- Strong Microsoft Office capability, especially Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Â