Job Description

The Director of Strategy provides advanced strategic leadership in support of enterprise priorities across University of Utah Health. Reporting to the System Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), this role operates at the intersection of system strategy, internal consulting, and applied analytics, leading high-impact strategic engagements from conception through executive decision.

The Director is responsible for structuring and executing complex, ambiguous strategic work that informs system direction, including growth strategy, service line strategy, market analysis, and enterprise initiatives. This role translates loosely defined questions into rigorous, data-informed insights and actionable recommendations, integrating quantitative analysis with strategic judgement.

In addition to personally leading the most critical engagements, the Director oversees a small team of strategy professionals and plays a central role in shaping team standards, methodologies, and output quality. The position partners closely with senior clinical, operational, and academic leaders across the health system and serves as a key connector between strategy, analytics, and execution.

This position has no responsibility for providing direct patient care.

Qualified candidates must have completed:

• Master’s degree in a relevant field.
• Six years professional experience in strategy or consulting.
• Experience in complex organizations, including healthcare.
• Experience leading strategic engagements.
• Experience supervising or mentoring staff.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience within an academic health system.
• Background in healthcare strategy.
• Experience applying advanced analytics.
• Familiarity with healthcare data environments.
• Experience across clinical, academic, and administrative domains.

Corporate Overview: University of Utah Health is an integrated academic healthcare system with five hospitals including a level 1 trauma center, eleven community health centers, over 1,600 providers, and a health plan serving over 200,000 members. University of Utah Health is nationally ranked and recognized for our academic research, quality standards and overall patient experience. In addition to our clinical delivery system, we have a School of Medicine, School of Dentistry, College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy, and College of Health providing education and training for over 1,250 providers annually. We have over 2 million patient visits annually and research grants exceeding $350 million. University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics represents our clinical operations for the larger health system.

As a patient-focused organization, University of Utah Health exists to enhance the health and well-being of people through patient care, research and education. Success in this mission requires a culture of collaboration, excellence, leadership, and respect. University of Utah Health seeks staff that are committed to the values of compassion, collaboration, innovation, responsibility, integrity, quality and trust that are integral to our mission. EO/AA

Responsibilities

Essential Functions

Strategic Leadership & Engagement Execution

• Leads the most complex and high-impact strategic engagements addressing enterprise-level questions, including system growth, market positioning, service line strategy, and long-range planning.
• Translates ambiguous or emerging strategic questions into structured analyses, hypotheses, and decision frameworks.
• Produces clear, defensible, data-driven narratives that inform executive-level decision-making.
• Determines appropriate methodologies (quantitative, qualitative, market-based, and operational) to address strategic questions.

System Strategy & Internal Consulting

• Serves as a senior strategic advisor to clinical, academic, and administrative leaders across the health system.
• Partners with executive and senior leadership to define, scope, and prioritize strategic initiatives.
• Designs and facilitates strategy discussions and working sessions that drive alignment, clarify tradeoffs, and enable timely decisions.
• Manages a dynamic portfolio of concurrent engagements, ensuring alignment with enterprise priorities and leadership timelines.
• Contributes directly to the development and refinement of system-level strategy in collaboration with the CSO.

Analytics & Insight Integration

• Applies advanced analytical tools and methods to inform strategic work, including financial modeling, market analysis, and forecasting.
• Partners closely with enterprise analytics functions to leverage existing data assets and develop new analyses where required.
• Demonstrates fluency in modern analytic tools and languages (e.g., SQL, Python, R) sufficient to guide, validate, and selectively perform analyses.
• Ensures that strategic insights are grounded in rigorous, reproducible analytical approaches.

Team Leadership & Capability Development

• Leads, mentors, and develops a small team of strategy professionals, including direct supervision, coaching, and performance management.
• Establishes and reinforces high standards for analytical rigor, structured thinking, and communication.
• Contributes to the evolution of team methodologies, tools, and knowledge assets.
• Plays a key role in recruiting, developing, and retaining top strategic and analytical talent.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Influence

• Builds and maintains strong relationships across clinical operations, finance, analytics, and academic leadership.
• Acts as a bridge between strategy and execution, ensuring recommendations are actionable and aligned with operational realities.
• Represents the Strategy function in cross-functional governance, planning, and enterprise initiatives.

Performance & Operational Contribution

• Contributes to the overall effectiveness of the Strategy function, including engagement planning, prioritization, and resource allocation.
• Supports development of internal processes and tools to improve efficiency, consistency, and impact.
• Demonstrates accountability for the quality, timeliness, and influence of strategic deliverables.

Knowledge / Skills / Abilities

• Advanced strategic thinking and problem-solving capabilities.

• Strong command of qualitative and quantitative analytical methods.

• Proficiency with analytic tools (e.g., SQL, Python, R).

• Ability to translate complex analyses into compelling narratives.

• Deep understanding of healthcare economics and academic health systems.

• Exceptional communication skills.

• Ability to manage multiple high-priority engagements.

• Strong leadership and interpersonal skills.

• Ability to operate in ambiguous environments.

Qualifications

Required

• Master’s degree in a relevant field.
• Six years professional experience in strategy or consulting.
• Experience in complex organizations, preferably healthcare.
• Experience leading strategic engagements.
• Experience supervising or mentoring staff.

Qualifications (Preferred)

Preferred

• Experience within an academic health system.
• Background in healthcare strategy.
• Experience applying advanced analytics.
• Familiarity with healthcare data environments.
• Experience across clinical, academic, and administrative domains.

Working Conditions and Physical Demands

Employee must be able to meet the following requirements with or without an accommodation.

• This is a sedentary position that may exert up to 10 pounds and may lift, carry, push, pull or otherwise move objects. This position involves sitting most of the time and is not exposed to adverse environmental conditions.

Physical Requirements

Listening, Manual Dexterity, Near Vision, Sitting, Speaking, Standing