Organization Summary
Our Mission and Impact
Upstream works to ensure individuals can make fully informed, autonomous decisions about the contraceptive methods that are best for them. We are currently the largest contraceptive organization in the country improving contraceptive care in primary care settings, operating in 37 states and Washington, D.C.
While our foundational work focuses on partnering with healthcare organizations offering primary care, such as federally qualified healthcare centers (FQHC) and health systems, we are always evolving. We are actively pursuing additional, innovative paths to ensure every patient has streamlined access to the contraceptive service of their choice, where and when it is most convenient for them.
A Different Kind of Nonprofit
Supported entirely by venture philanthropy, Upstream operates with a culture of aggressive growth and a laser focus on measurable outcomes. To maintain our independence and nonpartisan stance, we do not accept funding from the government or pharmaceutical companies.
Our 2030 Goal: We are on a mission to partner with organizations that collectively reach 5 million patients of reproductive age. Recognition: We are a 2023 Audacious Project recipient, with our work featured in publications like Harvard Public Health, Bloomberg, and MedPage Today.
Position Summary
The Director of Clinical Strategy Advising and Innovation is the clinical operations leader responsible for harnessing Upstream's Clinical Team to inform organizational initiatives, including our systems change work with health care organizations (HCOs) as part of our Core Program. The Director also advises on early stage program innovation to help grow our portfolio of programs from ideation to launch decisions. Sitting within the Clinical Strategy, Design and Training (CSDT) vertical, they manage a pool of clinician experts, deploying them to support HCO partners and the organization's highest-priority workstreams, while driving program evolution and innovations.
Reporting to the Head of Clinical Strategy, Design & Training, this role sits at the intersection of clinical practice and organizational strategy. The ideal candidate will have deep clinical expertise and experience supporting clinical innovations in a fast-paced setting. A background in health service research, clinical program design, and/or implementation science is preferred. The Director is responsible for ensuring that generative thinking and rapid experimentation are grounded in clinical best practices. They manage the operational handshake between program design and field implementation, ensuring that new pilots, enhancements, or interventions are designed for sustainable, high-fidelity uptake.
There is flexibility to reduce the schedule to 32 hours per week to allow the individual to maintain an active clinical practice, ensuring continued clinical expertise and credibility.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Strategy Execution & Monitoring
- Strategic Deployment: Develop and execute operational plans that align clinical work, including clinical innovation, with the broader strategic and financial goals of the organization. Ensure clinical expertise is a design partner from the discovery phase of initiatives to improve contraceptive access.
- Workstream Integration: Oversee the assignment of clinical advisors to specific workstreams, whether as ad hoc or embedded consultants.
- Tools & Resources: Develop frameworks and tools that support the Clinical Team in prioritization, decision-making, and execution against mission, vision and annual vertical goals.
Operational Updates and Innovation
- Embedded Innovation: Design and oversee rapid cycle clinical program enhancements.
- Rapid Prototyping: Drive generative thinking within the Clinical Strategy Team, lead innovation sprints to test new tools, workflows, or setting-specific adaptations.
- Guardrail Governance: Establish clinical guardrails and support clinical excellence in pilots, ensuring that innovation never compromises patient safety or medical standards.
- Core Program Enhancement: Collaborate with cross-functional teams, the Clinical Strategy Team, and other stakeholders to design and integrate clinical program updates seamlessly into existing clinical workflows.
- Setting-Specific Design: Support the adaptation of clinical program elements for new healthcare environments.
- Pilot Implementation: Partner with the VP of Strategy on developing and deploying program pilots, providing clinical guidance on operational workflows as well as insights on clinical ROI; gathering real-world feedback from field testing to inform the iterative program updates and scaling decisions.
Required Education, Experience, Knowledge, Skills and Ability
- Clinical Background: MD with 8-10+ years of clinical and leadership experience in clinical services or public health.
- Reproductive Health: Strong clinical background in contraceptive care and reproductive health equity
- Healthcare Leadership: 8+ years of experience managing multi-disciplinary clinical teams or complex projects in a healthcare setting or with health services operations.
- Clinical Innovation Experience: Demonstrated experience supporting innovation from ideation to implementation, including through health service redesign, clinical product development, or leading innovation sprints (rapid prototyping, user-centered design).
- Analytic Skills: Strong analytical and critical thinking skills; the ability to synthesize complex data, develop insights, and translate findings into actionable recommendations.
- Team Development: Proven track record of leading, mentoring, and elevating teams; able to build capability, set direction, and inspire high performance.
- Change Management: Experience supporting teams through periods of change whether driven by internal or external forces.
- Relationship Development: Exceptional relationship-building and cross-functional leadership capabilities, including a track record of influencing and aligning senior leaders without direct authority.
- Complex Project Management: Familiarity with project management tools and frameworks; experience managing large, multi-workstream initiatives, including prioritization, scoping, resourcing, and operational execution.
Travel: 25%
See complete job posting on our career site here.
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