Head of Trading

The Economist

With rigorous reporting, in-depth analysis and global perspective, we explain today’s most important events and seek to discern the trends that will shape tomorrow. At the core of everything we do is our independence, underpinned by our editorial culture and governance structure.

Role Overview

We are seeking a strategically minded Head of Trading to lead commercial performance management of The Economist’s B2C subscription business. This role owns the trading rhythm for subscription performance: providing clear, actionable insight and recommendations, identifying risks and opportunities, and enabling decisions that deliver sustainable subscriber and revenue growth. It is not a channel-marketing role; its value lies in connecting performance across acquisition, conversion, retention, engagement and customer lifetime value into a single commercial view. Working closely with Marketing, Retention and Engagement, Product, Propositions, Analytics and Finance, the Head of Trading will own performance oversight across markets, channels and products. They will be a trusted commercial partner to the Managing Director, bringing both challenge and recommendations to senior decision-making.  The role reports to the Managing Director, The Economist B2C, with a team of two reporting into it.

Key Responsibilities

Trading performance and insight

Own the weekly and monthly subscription trading cadence: covering acquisition, conversion, churn, subscriber net growth, and customer lifetime value

Lead the analysis of daily, weekly, and monthly subscription performance across products, channels, and markets

Diagnose performance movements, identifying emerging risks and opportunities, and recommending specific commercial interventions

Translate complex performance data into concise, decision-ready narratives for senior stakeholders

Establish and maintain a clear set of commercial KPIs, targets and performance thresholds

Oversee dashboards, reporting and performance tools in partnership with Business Intelligence, Insights & Analytics and Finance - ensuring reporting is accurate, timely, and aligned to business priorities

Commercial planning and forecasting

Partner with Finance to set commercial targets, develop forecasts and maintain an accurate view of performance against plan

Lead scenario analysis and quantify the expected commercial impact of proposed initiatives, pricing changes and investment decisions

Inform trading decisions on pricing, offers, promotions, packaging and other commercial levers, working with the relevant accountable teams

Ensure that short-term performance actions support longer-term subscriber value and sustainable growth

Experimentation and performance improvement

Partner with Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), Product, Marketing and Analytics teams to shape and prioritise an evidence-led experimentation roadmap

Ensure tests across acquisition, paywall, checkout, onboarding, engagement, retention and cancellation are evaluated consistently and translated into scalable actions

Challenge initiatives constructively, using commercial evidence to focus resources on the highest-value opportunities

Experience and Skills

Strong judgement, intellectual curiosity and the confidence to provide constructive challenge to senior stakeholders

Significant experience in trading, commercial analytics, performance management or commercial planning within a digital subscription, ecommerce, consumer-media or similarly data-rich business

Strong understanding of subscription economics, including acquisition, conversion, retention, churn, pricing, customer lifetime value and forecasting.

Highly analytical, with a proven ability to turn complex data into clear commercial recommendations

Excellent communication and storytelling skills; able to distil complex performance issues into a compelling decision narrative

Experience partnering across Finance, Analytics, Product and Marketing, with the credibility to influence without direct ownership of all delivery teams

Experience leading, developing and motivating analytically focused teams

Proficiency with Tableau, Looker, Power BI or similar reporting and analytics tools

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