Director, Project Management
Boston, MA - USA
Job Summary
Fenway Health is entering a new phase - building a Strategy Office to ensure that growth is not just well planned but successfully a healthcare environment shaped by shifting funding streams evolving reimbursement and increasing policy pressure on the communities Fenway serves making the right strategic choices is only part of the challenge. The real test is execution. Fenway is committed to not just deciding where to grow but delivering on those decisions - reliably efficiently and without compromising the care it already provides.
The Director Project Management sits at the center of that commitment. Reporting to the Chief Strategy Officer this role is responsible for turning growth decisions into realitylaunching new service lines integrating partnerships and ensuring each initiative is executed on time on budget and in alignment with Fenways mission. Working across clinical operational financial and administrative teams the Director identifies risks before they materialize and builds the coordination required to bring complex initiatives across the finish line.
This is a rare opportunity to build an execution function from the ground up. As part of a new CEO- and Board-sponsored team the Director will create Fenways readiness and integration approachdeveloping the tools processes and discipline needed to deliver consistently at scale. Starting as a hands-on individual contributor this role is designed to grow into leadership with a clear path to building and leading a team as the portfolio expands. Its an ideal role for someone who wants to own outcomesnot just plansand to build something lasting in service of expanding access to care.
Authority and Decision Rights
This role has no direct reports and no independent budget and it is accountable for work performed by people who do not report to it. Fenways position is that the authority to do that is supplied by the institution rather than improvised by the person in the seat. It is stated here so that it is not renegotiated at every launch.
- Decides directly: the launch plan the integration plan the sequencing the risk and decision logs and the readiness criteria themselves. These are not negotiated department by department.
- Recommends: readiness certification for handing a venture to Operations and the recovery plan whenever a milestone slips.
- Escalates: any milestone slipped without an agreed recovery plan any unresolved cross-functional conflict and any resource the approved plan requires and does not have to the Chief Strategy Officer and from there to the Executive Committee which is the forum of record for portfolio decisions.
- Convenes: cross-functional project and integration teams under a written charter issued by the Chief Strategy Officer with the Chief Executive Officers endorsement. Participation by functional leaders in a chartered project team is an expectation of those leaders not a favor to this role.
- Readiness tiebreak: this role recommends the Chief Operating Officer holds the acceptance criteria and the Chief Strategy Officer decides. Fenway will not leave a venture stranded between two executives who both have reasons to wait.
- Portfolio ceiling: while this is a single-person function no more than three ventures are carried in active launch or integration at one time. Beyond three the portfolio is sequenced capacity is added or the Chief Strategy Officer decides what does not proceed. The ceiling is a design decision rather than a preference and holding it is the Chief Strategy Officers job not this Directors.
New Service Line Launches
- Leads launch planning for new service lines across clinical readiness staffing billing space marketing and patient access.
- Keeps launch plans and go/no-go checklists current.
- Makes sure every launch plan includes HRSA FQHC licensure and other regulatory requirements confirmed with Compliance. No venture goes live without documented sign-off from Compliance.
- Works in partnership with the Director of Business Development on the hard parts of each project so that each launch has the best chance of success. The seam between the two roles is deliberate and fixed: the Director of Business Development owns the business case the go/no-go criteria and the baselines a venture will be judged against; this role owns delivery against those baselines readiness certification and the handoff to Operations. Where the two disagree about whether a venture is performing to case the Chief Strategy Officer decides.
Portfolio Reporting and Results Tracking
- Keeps one portfolio view of approved ventures for the Executive Committee and the Board showing where each venture stands against plan what is at risk and what decision is needed next.
- Sets and maintains the decision points that govern each stage of a venture from approval through handoff to Operations including who decides what.
- Tracks actual results against the approved business case for twelve months after launch revenue volume cost staffing and timeline and reports the differences on a set schedule.
- Works with Finance to explain why the differences happened and with the Director of Business Development to write down where the original model was wrong and why.
Partnership and Affiliation Integration
- Leads operations and systems integration for new ventures coordinating work across finance people clinical operations compliance information technology revenue cycle pharmacy communications and facilities.
- Owns the integration plan the milestones the risk log and the decision log.
- Leads the people and culture side of integration with the People team and clinical leadership including communication to affected staff role clarity and retention risk. At Fenway Health mission alignment is a condition of a successful integration not a soft consideration.
- Tracks what is holding each project up and brings risks and decisions to the Executive Committee and the Board on a regular schedule.
- Owns the readiness criteria for handing a venture to Operations and recommends when a venture has met them. The Chief Operating Officer holds the acceptance criteria and the Chief Strategy Officer decides.
Operating Rhythm
- Maintains the regular meeting and reporting rhythm for the growth portfolio including working sessions steering reviews and executive updates so that teams stay aligned.
- Partners with internal and external stakeholders particularly Operations and Finance to make change management work.
- Builds simple useful tools and templates that help teams rather than add work.
- Builds trust across the organization and knows when to push and when to support.
What Success Looks Like
This role is judged on outcomes rather than activity. The measures below are evergreen: they apply in the first year of the role and in every year after it and they are the basis of the annual performance conversation.
- Ventures land. They launch when the plan said they would at the cost the plan said they would without destabilizing the operations Fenway already runs.
- Nothing goes live that should not have. Compliance sign-off is documented before every launch without exception. The exceptions that would have been made under schedule pressure are the ones this role prevented.
- Leadership is never surprised. Risks reach the Executive Committee while there is still time to act on them not in the postmortem.
- Operations accepts what it is handed. Ventures transfer against written readiness criteria and stay stable after transfer. Operations is not quietly absorbing an unfinished launch.
- The people side holds. Staff affected by an integration learn what is happening to their work from Fenway before they hear it somewhere else and the people Fenway needed to keep are still here a year later.
- The practice outlives any one launch. The playbook the checklists and the readiness criteria are used by people other than this Director and would survive this Directors departure.
Confidentiality and Conflicts of Interest
This role has regular access to confidential information about partnership and affiliation discussions including information about other organizations. The Director maintains strict confidentiality about those discussions and discloses actual or potential conflicts of interest including past current or prospective relationships with any organization under evaluation in accordance with Fenway Healths conflict of interest policy.
Meet agency participatory expectations
- Adheres to all agency and departmental policies and procedures
- Participates in quality assessment and improvement activities as requested
- Adheres to the highest principles of patient and client confidentiality
- Adheres to established safety policies procedures and precautions; identifies potential or actual unsafe situations in the environment and takes measures to rectify the situation
- Attends all required meetings in-services and professional trainings
- Maintains professional competence necessary to perform job responsibilities; maintains and provides agency with records of continuing education activities
- Serves on agency committees and in professional organizations when requested
- Perform related duties as assigned
- Bachelors degree or equivalent professional experience required; Masters degree in Healthcare Administration Business Administration Public Health or a related field preferred.
- Seven (7) or more years in project or program management integration or healthcare operations including leading large multi-team projects.
- Proven success leading cross-functional projects ideally including the integration of a new business line or an affiliated organization in healthcare.
- Experience leading work in a clinical environment with clinicians whose first accountability is patient care rather than a project timeline.
- Comfort building a function from scratch and working hands-on without a team or an established office in place.
- Working knowledge of healthcare operations; FQHC Medicaid value-based care and HRSA experience a plus.
- Demonstrated ability to hold cross-functional teams to milestones through a written charter and a clear escalation path rather than through personal persuasion alone and to manage several priorities at once.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills and comfort working with senior leaders and the Board.
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively with LGBTQ communities people living with HIV and populations that have faced barriers to care and to reflect that understanding in analysis and recommendations. Qualifying evidence includes any of the following: prior professional work serving these populations; sustained volunteer advocacy or governance service with organizations that do; lived experience the candidate chooses to bring; or demonstrated fluency in a work sample or case discussion in how obligations to these communities constrain a business decision. This is a screened requirement rather than a preference and it is assessed against this evidence rather than left to the judgment of individual interviewers. Candidates who meet it through the last form are expected to build depth in the first year and Fenway Health will invest in that.
- Understanding of how mission obligations shape business decisions in a safety-net setting including where Fenway Health will decline an opportunity that would make money.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in community health centers FQHCs health systems or safety-net healthcare.
- Healthcare integration experience or work with a healthcare consulting integration team.
- PMP Lean Agile or change management training (useful but not required).
- Familiarity with EHR rollouts telehealth or multi-site operations.
Physical Requirements:
- Requires the ability to meet the following physical requirements with or without reasonable accommodations:
- Ability to effectively communicate in person over the phone and through email and other electronic communication
- Ability to sit at a computer station for extended periods of time
- Ability to keyboard for extended periods of time
We offer competitive salaries and for those who qualify an excellent benefits package; including comprehensive medical and dental insurance plans generous paid time off commuter benefits and more.
LGBTQIA identified persons Black Indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC) and individuals from other historically underrepresented communities are strongly encouraged to apply.
Anticipated hiring salary is typically toward the beginning of the posted salary range with higher placement for candidates whose skills experience and qualifications significantly exceed the positions minimum requirements.
Required Experience:
Director
About Company
Fenway Health provides exceptional comprehensive and culturally competent medical, behavioral health, radiology, pharmacy, dental and eye care as well as