WHAT DOES AN EDITORIAL DIRECTOR DO?
Updated: Mai 29, 2025 - The Editorial Director leads the Education Editorial Management team, overseeing the business goals and gross margins of the Education/School services. This position collaborates with sales, marketing, delivery, and product teams to assess market trends, provide strategic direction, and ensure the company is positioned as a key partner for educational publishers. This role manages client relationships and contributes to content strategy, messaging, and value propositions that drive success.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Editorial Director
1. Editorial Director Duties
- Tone of Voice Management: Work closely with the Head of Brand and Content Strategy to articulate the tone of voice and act as the tone of voice brand guardian, ensuring its consistency and adoption across the organization.
- Editorial Quality Assurance: Ensure that editorial content is of the highest quality by providing feedback on all copy and working with senior stakeholders.
- Digital Marketing Copywriting: Pitch in and create copy for all forms of digital marketing, including CRM, messaging guidelines, and web.
- Editorial Project Oversight: Manage all editorially-driven projects that are briefed into the Brand and Content Team, overseeing the production process to the highest standard and ensuring editorial excellence.
- Creative Collaboration: Collaborate with other creatives while partnering with internal stakeholders, owning multiple jobs from inception to conclusion, and keeping every project, large or small, in perfect order.
- Content Development Coaching: Work with the team to help them generate lots of fresh, original ideas from a brief and coach them around executing idea-driven content.
- Web Operations Management: Run the day-to-day operations of the organization’s websites, including fielding pitches, generating ideas, collaborating with internal teams, line-editing stories from a team of internal and freelance writers, overseeing publishing, and recruiting new writing talent.
- Content Editing: Edit a variety of content, including articles, photo essays, and news posts.
- Project Coordination: Conceive and assign the reporting of large-scale projects and manage moving parts.
- Editorial Strategy Collaboration: Collaborate with the other members of the Stand Together editorial leadership team on larger editorial strategy and lineups.
- Editorial Needs Collaboration: Collaborate with communications directors and other stakeholders on editorial needs.
- Digital Publishing Coordination: Work with internal departments, including relationship managers and digital and video teams, to coordinate digital publishing efforts.
- Organizational Voice Alignment: Make sure that all editorial products reflect organizational voice and messaging.
- SEO Best Practices: Apply SEO best practices at all times.
2. Editorial Director Details
- Team Leadership: Lead and manage a team of Medical Editors in support of integrated, healthcare marketing programs.
- Staff Training and Mentoring: Train staff to perform their respective roles, and mentor/coach team members to encourage career growth.
- Performance Standards Management: Establish and champion best-in-class performance standards, set benchmarks for quality, and monitor and reinforce Editorial team performance to ensure consistent and successful execution, and continuous professional improvement.
- Process Improvement: Introduce tools/processes/ways of working that improve work quality and efficiency.
- Team Development Support: Support team development through formal and informal education, performance review, and feedback.
- Cross-functional Collaboration: Collaborate with account and project management teams to understand Agency business from a scope, and workflow perspective and contribute input to scope estimation, timelines, resource planning, etc.
- Talent Acquisition: Identify, interview, and hire highly qualified Medical Editors.
- Workload Management: Assign editors to brands and address any workload/overflow issues, resolve any risks related to timing changes, vacations, or other issues, planned or unplanned.
- Issue Resolution: Serve as escalation point-of-contact to troubleshoot if any concerns arise.
- Editorial Business Support: Provide editorial support on new business initiatives.
3. Editorial Director Responsibilities
- Educational Editorial Leadership: Lead the Education Editorial Management team and be responsible for the business goals of the Education/School services.
- Partnership Development: Facilitate becoming a major partner and service provider to educational publishers.
- Financial Accountability: Take responsibility for service-wise revenue numbers and be responsible for gross margins for the respective services.
- Sales and Pre-sales Support: Support the sales and pre-sales teams with RFIs and RFPs, and lead the Editorial Management team in supporting these activities.
- Client Relationship Support: Accompany the Key Account Managers on client visits when needed.
- Operational Visits Management: Visit HQ offices/delivery centers when required for business needs.
- Cross-functional Collaboration: Work in a matrix relationship with sales, marketing, delivery, and product teams.
- Market Trend Analysis: Assess customer and market trends and ensure readiness to address these trends.
- Strategic Client Interaction: Lead discussions with clients, articulating strategic purpose and requirements, providing high-level input and advice that defines a successful strategy.
- Content Strategy Leadership: Strategically lead in developing strategy for content and campaign architecture, focusing on editorial storylines and angles that stand out from the crowd.
- Messaging Development: Develop positioning, messaging, and value propositions.
4. Editorial Director Job Summary
- Editorial Project Leadership: Lead, direct, and oversee the editorial development of projects from conception to final product, including the acquisition of authors, writers, and freelance editors on a work-made-for-hire basis.
- Budget and Quality Management: Oversee department budgets while monitoring quality, cost, and on-time delivery.
- Editorial Process Optimization: Maintain and improve the internal processes and procedures of the editorial team, and provide feedback to enhance the publication process.
- Industry Research and Staff Development: Research current industry trends for new innovations, tools, processes, and best practices to continually train and develop editorial staff.
- Strategic Partnering and Investment Advocacy: Partner with the Acquisitions Department to ensure that licensed products reflect the brand and audience development strategy of the licensor or partner and make a data-supported case for investment and publication.
- Publication Coordination: Work closely with the Managing Editor to ensure on-time delivery of the overall publication list.
- Progress Meeting Attendance: Attend all work-in-progress meetings and address any concerns affecting the schedule.
- Collaborative Finalization: Partner with respective department leaders on the final content, design, and specifications of published works.
- Sales and Marketing Support: Collaborate with and support the Sales and Marketing departments to deliver sales collateral and other information in a timely manner.
- Storytelling Leadership: Lead the content team in storytelling, defining the story and creative thinking.
- Editorial Quality Assurance: Serve as the internal editorial lead, responsible for the quality, standards, and accuracy of all TMW Business London content outputs.
- Team Management and Inspiration: Manage and inspire an in-house team of specialist content writers and producers.
- Hands-On Copywriting: Get involved in copywriting as needed, to originate, edit, and improve content across all forms.
5. Editorial Director Accountabilities
- Data-Driven Content Strategy: Use data and analytics to inform content and opportunities for audience growth, including A/B testing headlines in real-time.
- Strategic Leadership Collaboration: Work across the TODAY leadership team on content and programming strategies to drive creative storytelling, quality journalism, and audience growth.
- Editorial Team Leadership: Lead and oversee a world-class editorial team across print, digital, and experiential platforms.
- Global Editorial Management: Develop and manage the editorial product, output, and direction globally for print and digital products, ensuring a seamless voice.
- Brand Positioning: Strengthen the position of Dazed Digital as the world’s most authoritative and independent voice in culture.
- Diversity Network Building: Build a network of Dazed Contributors to ensure diversity is represented in content.
- Global Content Facilitation: Facilitate global content across the English language site and support content consistency and tone of voice as new markets are entered.
- International Relationship Building: Build global relationships with other Dazed offices to expand the vision, notably in China and the US.
- Product and Revenue Development: Help develop new products and revenue streams with Dazed Studio and the Commercial Sales team.
- Commercial Collaboration: Partner with the commercial team to ensure that commercial projects integrate with Dazed’s authentic tone of voice.
- Cultural Leadership: Continue to drive Dazed values, nurturing and developing talent.
- Brand Ambassadorship: Act as an ambassador for Dazed.