Senior Lead, Finance Business Partner

Lead finance for K12 Assessments — the largest assessment business in the new US K12 Business Unit, spanning three market-leading franchises: School Assessment (end-to-end state summative assessment programs), GED (the leading US high-school-equivalency credential which operates under a joint venture agreement), and Evaluation Systems (educator licensure and certification assessment). Together these businesses hold deep, long-term relationships with state education agencies across the country.

This is a highly commercial leadership role: the lead finance business partner to the K12 Assessments Managing Director and the senior finance voice on the Leadership Team. The portfolio combines three distinct business models — long-term custom service contracts, high-volume transactional testing, and candidate-funded certification programs — and the role owns the financial, commercial and strategic agenda across all three, shaping contract, pricing and investment decisions, not just reporting them.

The role carries a dual accountability that defines success: drive the business forward with the MD, and keep the US K12 Executive Partner, Finance ahead of events — a transparent, no-surprises flow of performance, risks and opportunities, elevated early and framed with options.

• Copilot to the Managing Director — trusted advisor providing independent challenge and strategic guidance on commercial performance, contract strategy and strategic outcomes.

• Connector across the K12 Assessments Leadership Team, ensuring alignment, consistency and transparency on capital allocation, prioritization and the balance of risk and reward across three businesses.

• Owner of the performance narrative — sharpen reporting and forecasting so decisions are made on leading indicators, not lagging results, and so the US K12 Business Unit always has an accurate, current view of each business.

• Custodian of the business's assets, managing risk and sustaining a strong compliance and controls culture across government contracts and joint-venture obligations.

• Leader of a high-performing finance team, developing talent and raising the analytical bar.

Commercial partnering

• Partner with the MD and Leadership Team to shape commercial strategy, ensuring decisions are grounded in robust financial insight and a clear view of each business's unit economics.

• Own the financial lens on the portfolio's core economic drivers: contract wins, renewals and lifetime value; test volumes and price realization; candidate conversion and attach economics; cost-to-serve and content investment returns.

• Build rigorous bid and renewal economics — incremental revenue versus incremental cost-to-serve on state RFPs, pricing posture by contract, and disciplined evaluation of scope expansion opportunities within existing programs.

• Bring a forward-looking, external perspective — state funding and policy developments, demographic and pipeline trends, competitor performance — and translate it into implications for plans and pricing.

Performance, transparency & escalation

• Operate a no-surprises partnership with the US K12 Executive Partner, Finance: early elevation of emerging risks and opportunities — including contract renewals, state budget developments and policy changes — quantified and framed with recommended actions.

• Own the monthly performance narrative for K12 Assessments: drivers and variances versus plan, forecast movements and the leading indicators behind them, communicated with clarity to the MD, the Business Unit and Group.

• Bring discipline to revenue forecasting across three distinct models — long-term contracts recognized on percentage of completion, short-cycle registration-driven testing volumes, and candidate-funded program fees — with rigorous cost-forecast governance underpinning each.

• Represent K12 Assessments in US K12 Business Unit forecast, planning and risk-and-opportunity reviews; ensure the portfolio's numbers, assumptions and story are consistent at every level they are told.

• Maintain a current, honest view of the risk and opportunity register, with owners and mitigation plans.

Contract, partnership & joint-venture governance

• Oversee the financial governance of the GED joint venture, including intercompany service arrangements, royalty obligations and partner reporting — ensuring charging arrangements remain accurate, contractually compliant and well evidenced.

• Maintain a complete view of the state contract portfolio — terms, scope, profitability and renewal exposure — and lead finance support for major renewals and new-state pursuits.

• Manage financial arrangements with internal service providers across Pearson, including test delivery and operations services, ensuring clear, fair and well-governed cost arrangements.

Planning, investment & performance management

• Lead the annual operating plan and long-range plan for K12 Assessments, embedding commercial and market perspectives into forecasts and ensuring targets are ambitious and credible.

• Partner on capital allocation and investment decisions — including significant ongoing content and product development investment — ensuring returns exceed hurdle rates and investments deliver against their cases.

• Define and track performance metrics aligned to commercial success across the portfolio — contract health, volumes, price realization, attach rates and margin — driving accountability for outcomes.

Frameworks, capability & ways of working

• Develop and embed consistent frameworks, methodologies and financial tools that raise the quality of decision-making across three businesses with different operating rhythms.

• Champion data-driven decision-making, automation and AI-enabled ways of working across the finance team and the business.

• Act as the conduit between the business and Finance Operations and Centers of Expertise, ensuring technical and process excellence is built into business practice.

Leadership

• Build and lead the K12 Assessments finance team, bringing finance professionals from three heritage businesses together as one team; develop talent, foster collaboration and plan succession.

• Build strong partnerships across US K12 Business Unit finance, Group Finance functions and other teams.

• Role model Pearson behaviours.

• A trusted, established partnership with the MD and K12 Assessments Leadership Team — finance visibly shaping the portfolio's biggest contract, pricing and investment decisions.

• A reliable performance and escalation rhythm with the US K12 Executive Partner — forecasts that are backed by data, risks and opportunities surfaced early, no surprises.

• One coherent finance view across the three businesses — clean baselines, consistent reporting and a single, trusted contract and performance picture — transitioned smoothly into the new US K12 Business Unit structures and cadence.

• Major contract renewals supported with rigorous economics; joint-venture financial governance operating cleanly through the transition.

• A stable, motivated finance team with clear development paths and strengthened analytical capability.

• Professional finance qualification and significant experience in senior finance business-partnering roles with strong commercial exposure.

• Demonstrated ability to influence executive stakeholders, provide independent challenge and shape strategic decisions.

• Deep expertise in financial planning, forecasting, investment analysis and commercial performance management.

• Proven track record of translating complex analysis into clear, actionable insight — and of communicating performance, risk and opportunity upward with candour and precision.

• Strong understanding of materiality and the ability to prioritize across competing agendas in a fast-moving environment.

• Ability to identify business risk early and implement mitigation; instinct for stewardship alongside growth.

• Collaborative leadership style with a proven capability to build and develop high-performing, cross-cultural teams — including integrating teams from previously separate organizations.

• An enterprise mindset: comfortable operating across organizational boundaries in a matrixed structure, including shared corporate functions.