Operations and Strategy Intern

MBA Summer Internship Job Description:

A ten week summer internship for MBA students who want to run businesses. It is the front door to our Chief of Staff (CXO) and Sandy Spring Operations Leadership Development Program (LDP) roles.

Location: Tysons, VA. In person, with travel to Ally centers across Maryland, Virginia, and the DC area.

Reports to: An executive sponsor on the leadership team, with direct exposure to the CEO.

Dates: Ten weeks, June through August. Some flexibility on start and end dates.

Please include a cover letter so we can get to know you better and understand why you believe you will be a good fit for our team! Applications submitted without a cover letter will not be considered.

About Ally Behavior Centers:

Ally Behavior is a fast-growing autism therapy company, built around exceptional clinical quality and an unmatched family experience. We have grown at roughly 70% CAGR over the last four years and we are building toward our next chapter: 10x’ing our center footprint over the next five years.

Scaling something this important requires more than plans; it requires leaders who can translate strategy into execution, build durable operating systems, and do the hard, unglamorous work to drive outcomes for kids and families.

This company has been built by investing in high-potential people earlier in their career and giving them meaningful responsibility as the business scales. Many of our leaders have grown into their roles by taking ownership of hard problems, delivering impact, and earning expanded scope over time. This internship is how we start that relationship earlier.

Overall, Ally Behavior is a dynamic, fun, and rewarding place to work that offers superior growth and leadership opportunities in a supportive, engaging environment. We have a unique and collaborative culture that is driven by our diverse team of professionals and our core values of Serving Others, Treatment Excellence, All One Ally, Resourceful in Finding Solutions, and Striving to Grow. We are looking for someone to help us provide the best possible service to our clients.

Why This Internship Exists:

We believe great companies are built from the ground up, and that is how we intend to build out our leadership team. We are not going to scale this business by buying our operators and executives on the open market. The talent does not exist at the volume we need, and even when it does it has been shaped by other companies with different standards. We need to build our own bench, and we would rather find and partner those people early.

The program has two focuses. First, you learn the business from the inside through rotations across Ally’s business functions. Second, you own one project tied to a live business initiative, with a defined scope, an executive sponsor, and output we expect to make its way into production.

This is not a watch from the sidelines internship. It is not a summer of shadowing that ends in a deck nobody uses. It is a role for someone with a do-whatever-is-necessary mindset. If the best way to win is to build the tracker, run the analysis, map the workflow, fix the handoff, sit with operators, draft the communications, and drive implementation, you will do that. Ally wants leaders who run toward the problems, not away.

We hold MBA interns to a senior standard. You should expect to be treated like a contributor from the start, and to be given more than you think you can handle, supported through it, and expected to deliver.

How the Summer Works:

Weeks 1 to 4: Learn the business

• Time in centers. You will work with the Operations Managers to learn how centers operate, shadow BCBAs and therapists, coordinate with the back office teams for authorizations and compliance, and help build the schedule. 
• Rotations across corporate functions: Enrollment, Sales and Marketing, Talent Acquisition and HR, Insurance and Revenue Cycle, Clinical Quality, Finance, and Operations.
• Structured learning on ABA, Speech, OT and Psychology service delivery, client outcomes, payor and authorization mechanics, clinical workflows, family experience, and unit economics.
• Scoping sessions with your executive sponsor to sharpen your project into a clear problem, a set of owners, a timeline, and success metrics.

Weeks 5 to 9: Own the project

• You own one initiative end to end. You do the analysis, build the thing, work with the operators who have to live with it, and drive it into use.
• Weekly working sessions with your executive sponsor. Regular time with the CEO and functional leaders.
• You are expected to move quickly with imperfect information while maintaining rigor and integrity, and to escalate with a recommendation rather than a question.
• Midpoint review at roughly week 7, where we look hard at progress, adjust scope if the business has changed, and give you direct feedback.

Week 10: Land it

• Present results to the CEO and the leadership team. We want the recommendation, the trade offs, the numbers, and what you would do next.
• Hand off cleanly. A documented process, a working dashboard, a trained owner, whatever it takes for the work to keep running without you.
• Return offer decision.

Example Projects:

Projects are assigned based on where the business needs help and where your background gives you an edge. Recent and likely examples include:

• Patient journey and time to start: intake funnel, parent touch-points, handoffs, authorization bottlenecks, client conversion.
• Center operations optimization: scheduling utilization, staffing ramps, clinical supervision leverage, standardized clinical processes.
• Payor and revenue cycle performance: authorization cycle time, denials reduction, process redesign, support for contract negotiations.
• Market expansion readiness: market selection and sizing, site selection, ramp plans, launch scorecards.
• Referral growth: partnership strategy, local activation, conversion tied to available capacity.
• Service line pilots: business case, pilot design, pro-forma modeling, measurement, and a scale or kill recommendation.
• Clinical quality and outcomes: improvements to quality assurance process, standardized care delivery across centers and clinicians, outcomes measurement reporting and analysis.
• AI and automation: identify the workflows worth automating, build or deploy the tool, measure what it actually saved.

What Success Looks Like:

• Your project shipped, with measurable business impact in growth, access, quality, or economics, and it is still running after you leave.
• You can walk into any Ally center and read it. You know what good looks like, where the leverage is, and what the operator in that seat is dealing with.
• Operators and center leaders trust you. You earned that by being useful to them, not by being assigned to them.
• We know whether we want you back, and you know whether you want to come back. 

The Return Offer:

Interns who perform receive an offer into one of two roles:

• Chief of Staff (CXO). You are staffed on the company’s highest-impact initiatives, often ambiguous, cross-functional, and urgent. You work closely with the executive team, report to an executive sponsor, and earn increasing ownership quickly. 
• Sandy Spring Leadership Development Program (LDP). A two to three year operating apprenticeship that takes you from learning how a center runs, to running one with full P&L accountability, to a regional leadership role. 

Who Thrives Here:

• You have a high-ownership, low-ego mindset and no task is below you.
• You are energized by ambiguity and you can create structure from scratch.
• You can zoom from strategy to operations to execution without losing momentum.
• You are direct, collaborative, persistent, and able to influence without authority.
• You take feedback seriously and you give it directly.
• You are compassionate and have a high EQ. We work with families who have children with developmental delays, and the family experience is part of every problem we solve.
• You hold a high bar for ethics and quality in a healthcare setting.
• You want to lead a business, not just analyze one.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Currently enrolled in a full-time MBA program and returning to school following the internship.
• 3+ years of pre-MBA experience in operations, consulting, banking, healthcare, military leadership, program leadership, or another high-growth operating environment, with a track record of measurable outcomes.
• Demonstrated leadership of people or projects with real stakes.
• Strong analytical ability. Fluency in Sheets and Excel. Comfort reading a P&L. Comfort with dashboards and BI tools is a plus.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, and the ability to drive alignment across stakeholders who do not report to you.
• Willingness to be physically present in Tysons and in centers, and to travel.
• Must be able to pass federal, state, and county background checks.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in multi-site healthcare services, ABA, behavioral health, pediatrics, or adjacent fields.
• Familiarity with payor dynamics, authorizations, and revenue cycle.
• Prior ownership of a unit, team, store, branch, or other front line P&L.
• Experience with technology implementation, process automation, or service operations improvement.
• Experience supporting rapid expansion or building operating cadence such as OKRs and QBRs.
• A clear interest in an operating career after school. We are looking for people who want to run something, not people looking for one more rotation.

Growth and Development:

We invest in interns the same way we invest in our leaders. Over the summer you will get:

• A formal executive sponsor from the leadership team who owns your development, not just your project.
• A peer mentor who is a current Regional Director or CXO.
• Direct exposure to the CEO and executive team decision-making.
• Real ownership of an initiative that shapes the company’s trajectory.
• Direct, frequent feedback, including a midpoint review and a final review.

Our goal is to accelerate your growth curve by placing you in an outsized role with meaningful responsibility, surround you with the people and feedback you need to grow, and help you earn a path into broader leadership at Ally.

What We Offer When Joining Our Team:

• Internship compensation of $2,300 to $2,800 per week depending on experience.
• Housing and relocation stipend of $5,000 for interns relocating to the DC metro area for the summer.
• Return offer consideration into the Chief of Staff (CXO) or Sandy Spring (LDP) roles, with a decision before you return to school.
• Company-sponsored DashPass.
• Paid company holidays that fall during the internship.
• Executive sponsorship, formal mentorship, and a structured curriculum on center operations, payor and revenue cycle mechanics, people leadership, financial management, and clinical quality.

Pay Range 2300 - 2800 USD