Associate Director - Innovation Strategy and Execution

Overview

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication, and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skill sets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with the majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

Program Overview

CHAI's Innovation portfolio looks for new program areas at the intersection of large health problems, tractable solutions, and places where CHAI can have outsized impact. It incubates those programs, tests them, and scales the ones that work into the wider organization. Innovation also helps shape and fund several of CHAI's largest organization-wide priorities.

Examples of the kinds of programs Innovation builds and has built: 

• Highly cost-effective interventions identified and launched in partnership with GiveWell, such as oral rehydration solution with zinc, scale-up of best in class malaria therapies in the private sector 
• Helping ministries of health capture the benefits of artificial intelligence and build toward AI-enabled health systems 
• Comprehensive programs to increase access to best in class treatment for severe mental illness 
• Reducing lead exposure, from point-of-care blood lead testing to lead-safe paint.

Position Overview 

Innovation is where CHAI builds its next generation of programs. The portfolio has grown quickly, adding funding, countries, and programs, and its next phase depends on moving faster on the opportunities with the greatest potential for impact.

This role will help make that happen. Working directly with the Vice President, Innovation, as a trusted extension of their team, they will lead the portfolio's most important projects, keep a fast-growing portfolio running well, be a thought partner on strategy, and build how the team works. The aim is simple: the Vice President's time goes where it matters most, and everything else still moves.

The range is wide. On a given day, you might draft a partner follow-up in the morning, pressure-test a new program strategy at midday, and spend the afternoon structuring a proposal that did not exist the day before. You will have full context on the portfolio, including confidential and pre-decisional material, and will be trusted to act on it without waiting to be asked. You will also work closely with members of Innovation's AI team, using AI tools to work faster and more effectively across everything above, this role is ideally suited to someone who is an AI superuser and who defaults to using AI to amplify individual and team output.

We are looking for someone with the toolkit of a top-tier strategy consultant, the hands-on experience of an operator, and the instincts of a founder. The right person owns outcomes rather than tasks, builds structure where there is none, and would rather solve a problem than escalate it. They hold an independent view and voice it, including to senior leaders.

This is a rare view of how new global health programs are designed, funded, and scaled, working with senior leaders, funders, and government partners. It suits someone who is keen to learn quickly and grow into senior leadership.

The role reports to the Vice President, Innovation. It is remote, ideally based on the US East Coast (other locations will be considered), with regular in-person working days in Boston and occasional international travel. 

In your first year, you might:

• Coordinate a major fundraising effort for one of CHAI's priority programs, from first concept to final submission 
• Take a one-page concept for a new program area to a funded plan: problem, evidence, approach, budget, and first hires 
• Work alongside a program lead as their program expands into new countries, setting up the plans, team structure, and operating routines it needs to grow 

Responsibilities

Lead the portfolio's most important projects

• Lead high-stakes special projects across the portfolio from start to finish: scope the problem, build the plan, do the work, and deliver
• Coordinate Innovation's part in CHAI's largest fundraising efforts for its priority big bets, including working-level management of key funder relationships with established and emerging philanthropists
• Work alongside program leads through periods of rapid growth, strengthening their plans, team structures, and senior hiring, and adding capacity where a critical workstream needs it
• Do the hands-on work that moves things forward, from drafting memos and slide decks to tracking down the information or the person a decision depends on

Be a thought partner

• Work through strategy, prioritization, and organizational questions with the Vice President, bringing independent analysis and a clear recommendation
• Look across the portfolio for risks, connections, and opportunities that no single program would see, spotting and acting on synergies across teams that would otherwise stay siloed

Keep the portfolio running well

• Maintain a live view of the portfolio's priorities, deadlines, and dependencies, and plan ahead for known commitments such as funder deadlines, reporting cycles, and leadership reviews
• Triage incoming requests and route them to the right owner, so decisions get made at the right level and nothing stalls
• Prepare Innovation leadership for key meetings, and own the follow-through afterward so that commitments to funders and partners are met
• Prepare the portfolio's inputs for CHAI's CEO, board, and senior leadership, turning progress across the programs into clear materials and the decisions needed

What Success Looks Like After Six Months

• You have led two or three high-stakes projects from start to finish, such as a major funding proposal or the launch of a new workstream
• You have worked alongside at least one program in a growth phase to strengthen its plans, team, or operating routines
• Commitments to funders and partners are tracked and followed through within 48 hours of the meetings that generate them
• Colleagues across the portfolio see you as the person who gets things moving

Is This Role for You?

• You find real satisfaction in making a leader and a team more effective, and no task is too small if it moves the work forward
• You are as comfortable drafting a follow-up email as leading a strategy discussion, and you know when to step back from the detail
• You create structure where there is none, and you know when to ask for input
• You lead through ownership and influence rather than formal authority
• You do your best work with pace, ambiguity, and a portfolio that is still being built
• You tell senior leaders what you think, including when it is not what they expected to hear

Qualifications

• A track record of taking an ambiguous problem, structuring it, and delivering the result with full ownership
• 8 or more years of professional experience, with a track record of progressively senior, trusted responsibility; this often includes time at a top-tier management consulting firm or in a comparable strategy role, but that specific background is one path among several, not a fixed requirement
• Hands-on operating experience inside an organization, such as leading a function, launching a program, or running part of a business
• Exceptional structured thinking and problem-solving, with the ability to turn a vague brief into a workable plan quickly
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to compress complex material for senior audiences
• An entrepreneurial, self-directed approach: high output, high standards, and comfort with limited structure and shifting priorities
• The confidence to hold and voice an independent view, including disagreement with senior leaders, and the judgment to recognize when a call is not theirs to make
• Political awareness, and the ability to work across teams and levels without formal authority
• A confident, advanced user of modern AI productivity tools (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT, Codex), who uses them daily to think faster, write better, and get more done.
• Discretion and judgment with confidential personnel, funder, and board-sensitive material

Advantages

• MBA or equivalent graduate degree
• Experience in global health, international development, or philanthropy
• Experience in a chief of staff, strategy, or special projects role supporting a senior executive
• Founding or early-stage experience building a product, program, or business from scratch
• Experience supporting a program, team, or business through a period of rapid growth

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