The Chief of Staff serves as a key member of the New England Care Delivery leadership team and reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer. This role acts as a strategic partner and advisor, driving execution of market priorities, strengthening organizational alignment, and enabling performance across the care delivery system. The role will partner with enterprise and national leaders to ensure New England priorities are aligned with Optum Health strategy, advance national initiatives, and scale best practices across the broader care delivery platform. The Chief of Staff owns the leadership operating rhythm, supports executive decision-making, advances integration across Massachusetts and Connecticut, and drives cross-functional accountability across clinical, operational, financial, technology, strategy, and People Team priorities.
You'll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. For all hires in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area, you will be required to work in the office a minimum of four days per week.
Primary Responsibilities: Strategic Leadership & Market Execution
- Partner with the Market CEO and New England leadership team to define and execute strategic priorities across the market, including Massachusetts and Connecticut care delivery entities
- Translate enterprise, regional, national, and market strategies into actionable plans with clear outcomes, measurable results, owners, milestones, and disciplined follow-through
- Create a clear view of market business drivers, performance metrics, risks, execution priorities, and gap-closure plans to improve decision quality and speed
- Lead the market performance management process by defining critical success metrics, establishing governance and reporting mechanisms, identifying performance gaps, coordinating corrective action plans, and ensuring accountability for results. Drive disciplined follow-through on strategic priorities and ensure leaders are focused on the initiatives that create the greatest value for patients, providers, employees, and the business
Executive Partnership
- Serve as a trusted advisor, strategic thought partner, and execution extension of the Market CEO.
- Provide insights, analysis, recommendations, and decision framing to support executive prioritization and timely action
- Represent the CEO in select engagements, ensuring alignment, clear communication, and appropriate escalation of risks, tradeoffs, and decisions
Experience Strategy (Employee, Clinician, Provider, Patient)
- Lead and support strategies to improve employee, clinician, provider, and patient experience across the New England care delivery system
- Partner with market and national teams to align experience priorities, reduce operational friction, and scale practices that improve engagement, effectiveness, retention, and adoption of organizational priorities
- Translate feedback, workforce and provider pain points, and business priorities into actionable recommendations that simplify work and improve outcomes
External Strategy & Partnerships
- Research, develop, and help drive external relationship strategy across the New England market
- Identify partnership opportunities with payers, hospital systems, community stakeholders, and other strategic partners to strengthen market position and advance care delivery priorities
- Support executive preparation for external engagements by synthesizing context, objectives, risks, and recommended actions
Operational & Cross-Functional Alignment
- Drive alignment across functions, business units, care delivery entities, and enterprise partners to reduce fragmentation and accelerate consistent execution
- Support a more integrated one-market model across New England by aligning leaders, simplifying decision forums, surfacing risks, and ensuring work moves from planning to measurable outcomes
- Develop and maintain a comprehensive view of operational, financial, workforce, clinical, growth, provider, patient, and culture metrics to ensure leaders have clear visibility into performance, emerging risks, opportunities, and required interventions
Program & Initiative Leadership
- Lead complex, cross-functional initiatives across clinical, operational, strategic, integration, and transformation priorities
- Establish governance, track initiative progress, manage dependencies, and ensure accountability against owners, milestones, metrics, and escalation paths
- Lead high-priority or confidential work on behalf of the Market CEO, including operating model redesign, AI/workforce productivity, integration readiness, strategic planning, and leadership communications
Executive Communication & Governance
- Support the leadership operating cadence, including executive meetings, business reviews, quarterly planning, strategic reviews, and follow-through on decisions
- Prepare executive-level materials, decision memos, CEO briefings, board-ready updates, ELT communications, and market performance narratives
- Ensure business reviews clearly answer how the market is performing, where gaps exist, what actions are underway, and how execution is being managed
National Collaboration
- Partner with national teams to support enterprise initiatives and ensure New England priorities are aligned with enterprise strategy
- Contribute to scaling best practices across markets by connecting local execution, national priorities, and broader Optum Health Care Delivery objectives
- Help coordinate national, regional, and market accountabilities so leaders have clarity on decisions, dependencies, and execution expectations
You'll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role as well as provide development for other roles you may be interested in.
Required Qualifications: - 10+ years of progressive experience in strategy, operations, consulting, transformation, healthcare leadership, finance, or enterprise program execution
- Demonstrated ability to support senior executives, lead cross-functional initiatives, influence across matrixed teams, and convert complex priorities into executable plans
- Demonstrated experience establishing and managing executive-level performance management processes, including development of metrics, dashboards, business reviews, governance routines, and accountability mechanisms to drive organizational performance
- Proven success creating executive visibility into performance trends, leading cross-functional problem solving, and driving accountability for execution across highly matrixed organizations
- Proven solid analytical, financial, communication, executive storytelling, dashboard, governance, and decision-support capabilities
- Demonstrated ability to operate with discretion, independent judgment, and solid follow-through in a fast-paced, complex healthcare environment
- Driver's License and access to reliable transportation
Preferred Qualifications: - Healthcare delivery or payer-provider experience, particularly in Optum Health, Care Delivery, value-based care, regional market operations, integration, or transformation
- Experience working directly with senior executive teams and preparing executive-level materials, decision memos, and governance routines
- Experience supporting integration, operating model redesign, provider experience strategy, workforce productivity, or large-scale market transformation
Competencies:- Strategic thinking, business acumen, rigorous prioritization, and structured problem solving
- Executive communication, stakeholder management, decision framing, and ability to synthesize complex topics into clear recommendations
- Influence without authority across clinical, operational, finance, technology, strategy, national, regional, and People Team partners
- Operational rigor, governance, performance management, integration management, change leadership, and disciplined follow-through
- Ability to operate in ambiguity, simplify complexity, anticipate risks, and build alignment across a matrixed healthcare environment
*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy
Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $159,300 to $273,200 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.
Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.
