Research & Concept Lead

At Sanoma Learning, we are shaping the future of education across Europe.

What you’ll do

• Lead early-stage discovery by combining user research, future thinking, and systems thinking
• Translate insights, signals, and trends into clear, actionable product concepts
• Shape opportunity spaces before solutions are defined

Lead research in the Italian market

• Plan and execute qualitative and quantitative research in Italy
• Ensure local user, pedagogical, and market perspectives are deeply understood
• Connect local insights with cross-country learnings to inform scalable solutions

Balance desirability, feasibility & viability

• Evaluate concepts across user value, technical feasibility, and business impact
• Partner with product, tech, and business stakeholders to guide decisions and trade-offs

Influence product strategy

• Bring evidence-based thinking into product strategy, roadmaps, and investments
• Help define future vision and opportunity areas

Lead complex, cross-country initiatives

• Align multidisciplinary teams across markets
• Create shared understanding and direction in ambiguous, early-stage environments
• Facilitate alignment across research, design, product, and engineering
• Make insights, assumptions, and decisions visible and actionable
• Contribute to evolving discovery and concepting practices across the organization

What we’re looking for

Must have

• 5+ years of experience in research, product discovery, or related roles
• Proven experience leading research and early-stage product discovery in complex environments
• Strong ability to connect user insights with product strategy and business impact
• Experience shaping product concepts (not just features)
• Excellent facilitation, storytelling, and stakeholder alignment skills
• Experience working with the Italian market
• Fluent in English and Italian native

Nice to have

• Experience in education or learning products
• Background in innovation, concept strategy, or design strategy
• Experience scaling discovery practices across teams or organizations
• Familiarity with accessibility, inclusion, and ethical research

How you work

• You’re comfortable operating in ambiguity and shaping direction from scratch
• You combine analytical thinking with creativity
• You are collaborative, proactive, and quality-driven
• You think in systems, not silos

Why this role matters

You will play a key role in defining the future of learning products across multiple countries — ensuring that what we build is not only innovative, but meaningful, scalable, and grounded in real user needs .

Additionally, Sanoma Learning is committed to being an equal opportunity employer, promoting diversity, inclusion, and fairness by ensuring equal opportunities regardless of personal characteristics such as race, gender, religion, or disability.