What does this role do at AHIMA?The Senior Director, Higher Education Strategy & Products, is responsible for defining and executing AHIMA's strategy for serving colleges, universities, educators, and students across the health information profession. This leader oversees the development, growth, and performance of AHIMA's higher education product portfolio.
Working across product, academic affairs, certification, membership, marketing, sales, technology, and finance, this individual will identify emerging market needs and translate them into relevant, scalable, and financially sustainable solutions. The role will strengthen AHIMA's relationships with academic institutions while ensuring its educational products prepare learners for the evolving demands of health information, data, revenue cycle, privacy, compliance, and healthcare technology careers.
What are some of the responsibilities?Higher Education Strategy:
- Develop and lead a comprehensive higher education strategy aligned with AHIMA's mission, enterprise priorities, and long-term growth objectives.
- Define AHIMA's value proposition for academic institutions, educators, students, and emerging professionals.
- Identify opportunities to expand AHIMA's footprint across colleges, universities, community colleges, and other workforce education providers.
- Monitor trends affecting health information education, including enrollment patterns, workforce demand, accreditation requirements, emerging technologies, artificial intelligence, and changing employer expectations.
Product Portfolio Leadership:
- Own the strategy, roadmap, lifecycle, and financial performance of AHIMA's higher education products and solutions.
- Guide the development and enhancement of curriculum, textbooks, digital learning resources, assessments, faculty tools, student products, and credential-preparation solutions.
- Establish business cases, pricing strategies, revenue forecasts, and performance measures for new and existing offerings.
Market and Customer Engagement:
- Build strong relationships with academic leaders, program directors, faculty, students, employers, and industry partners.
- Establish ongoing mechanisms for gathering customer insights, validating market needs, and incorporating feedback into product decisions.
- Represent AHIMA at academic, workforce, and industry events and serve as a visible thought leader on the future of health information education.
Growth and Go-to-Market Execution:
- Partner with marketing and sales teams to develop institutional acquisition, retention, and expansion strategies.
- Develop strategies to increase institutional adoption, product utilization, student engagement, credential participation, and conversion to professional membership.
Team and Financial Leadership:
- Lead, develop, and mentor a high-performing team responsible for higher education strategy and product execution.
- Develop and manage operating budgets, revenue targets, and forecasts.
- Foster a culture of customer focus, accountability, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
- Manage external authors, subject-matter experts, vendors, and strategic partners as needed.
What are the knowledge and skills requirements?- Bachelor's degree required, Master's preferred.
- Five or more years of progressive experience in product strategy, higher education, educational publishing, healthcare education, workforce development, or a related area.
- 5-10 years of experience leading teams and complex cross-functional initiatives.
- Demonstrated proficiency in the development of operational strategy, program design, and implementation of learning initiatives.
- Demonstrated understanding of market analysis in relationship to needs assessment.
- Demonstrated ability to cultivate relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
- Able to adapt in an agile manner and to be proactive in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment.
- Strong digital acumen and engagement skills; superior written, verbal and persuasive communication skills
- Strong capabilities in data analytics, as it pertains to the creation of strategies and plans that produce results and impact.
- Capability to build and nurture high-performing teams, fostering collaboration, trust, and accountability.
- Intermediate working knowledge of MS Office (Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Teams).
- Experience with Learning Management Software platforms.
