Commissioning Editor (Content commissioning & strategy)| ET Prime| Noida

About the Business

ET Prime is the premium subscription arm of The Economic Times India's most influential business media brand. We are building a content engine that serves paying subscribers with high-utility, decision-grade journalism across business, markets, economy, policy, and personal finance.

This is not a traditional editor's chair.

About the Role

The Commissioning Editor will architect and operate an external content ecosystem identifying, onboarding, and managing a large network of freelance writers, columnists, and domain experts whose work directly drives subscriber acquisition and retention. You will own the end-to-end commissioning pipeline: from sourcing and ideation to editorial quality and commercial ROI.

You will be measured not just on editorial output but on business outcomes. In subscription media, readers vote with their wallets and your role is to ensure we consistently earn that vote.

What You Will Do

Build and operate the commissioning engine

You will build a robust roster of external contributors across sectors business, economy, policy, geopolitics, personal finance, commodities, and emerging themes. The expectation is a steady pipeline of high-quality commissioned pieces, scaling up progressively from launch. You will manage contributor relationships, negotiate terms, maintain a healthy bench strength of writers, and ensure continuity so the pipeline never stalls due to dependency on any single contributor.

Drive content-market fit through data

Every commissioned piece carries a cost and must justify its existence through measurable outcomes subscriber conversions, engagement depth, time spent, and retention signals. You will work closely with analytics and product teams to build a feedback loop: what converts, what retains, what falls flat. You will A/B test headlines, experiment with formats, and make swift editorial calls based on data not instinct alone.

Own the editorial quality bar

You are the editor. You will shape the brief, guide the angle, sharpen the headline, and ensure every piece clears the bar for ET Prime subscribers a demanding, business-savvy audience that expects depth, utility, and originality. You will also curate and surface content from global editorial partnerships that ET Prime is building, ensuring relevance and editorial fit for our audience.

Identify white spaces and move fast

When gold surges, when new labour laws land, when tariff policy shifts you need to spot the opening, commission the right expert, and get the story out while the moment is live. The best commissioning editors think like traders: they read the market, identify demand, and move before the window closes.

Build a mini Prime desk

You will work with the leadership team to build the supporting infrastructure publishing, headline optimization, storytelling (infographics, newsletters, visual elements), and quality control. This includes identifying what talent is needed on the desk to complement the commissioning function.

Expand the content canvas over time

While written content is the immediate priority, the role will evolve to include commissioning across formats video, audio, newsletters, and serialized deep-dives. If you have experience or strong instincts across formats, that will be a significant advantage.

What We Are Looking For

Must-haves:

• 812 years of experience in editorial, content commissioning, or content strategy preferably in digital media, business journalism, or premium/subscription publishing.
• A demonstrated ability to build and manage networks of freelance writers and external contributors at scale. You should be able to credibly build a roster of 50+ contributors across sectors within the first few months.
• Deep comfort with numbers and analytics. You will live in dashboards as much as in editorial briefs. Experience working with content performance data (conversion rates, engagement metrics, A/B testing) is essential.
• Strong editorial judgment the ability to spot a story that will sell, frame it sharply, and commission the right person to write it.
• Budget ownership experience. You will manage a commissioning budget with clear ROI accountability.
• A genuine understanding of what business professionals, investors, and decision-makers are willing to pay for. Painkiller content, not vitamins.
• Comfort operating in a fast-paced, metrics-driven environment where editorial decisions have direct commercial consequences.
• Total required expereince shoud be between 15- 22 years

Strong advantages:

• Prior experience in subscription or paywall-driven media you understand the economics of subscriber acquisition and LTV.
• Your own writing chops. If you can commission and produce high-quality stories yourself, that's a bonus.
• Experience commissioning across formats video, visual storytelling, newsletters.
• A working familiarity with AI tools for editorial workflows (headline generation, research, brainstorming). You don't need to be an AI enthusiast, but you should be comfortable working in a team that uses AI extensively as an editorial assist.
• An existing network in business journalism, financial commentary, or expert communities that you can activate quickly.

What This Role Is Not

• This is not a desk editing role where stories land in your inbox and you clean them up.
• This is not a pure newsroom role driven by daily news cycles it is a strategic content function with commercial accountability.
• This is not remote-friendly the role requires daily in-office presence for collaboration with editorial, product, analytics, and leadership teams.

Why This Matters

ET Prime is at an inflection point. We have proven product-market fit for premium business content in India. We have a paying subscriber base, a strong brand, and the full weight of The Economic Times behind us. What we are building now is the content supply engine that can scale this into a significantly larger business.

If you have the editorial instinct, the commercial sensibility, and the network to make this work we would like to hear from you.