This role resides within the Science Department and will report to the SVP of Science Strategy while maintaining constant communications with the Research VPs in the department, including the VP of Osteoarthritis and the VP of Autoimmune Inflammatory Arthritis. The position will oversee the Director of Patient Engagement.

Responsibilities for the position include: 1) leading the centralization of patient and HCP engagement and relationship management processes and strategy, with a focus on increasing our reach and connections to health care providers working with patients who have osteoarthritis; 2) recruiting Subject Matter Experts for Advisory and Review Panels to enable position statement development and approval, integration of patient education content by actively engaging health care providers, communicating the scientific priorities and health consumer interests of our Foundation, and 3) translating the health care provider and patient engagement focus areas into specific implementation plans and projects to seek revenue opportunities, such as fee for service patient recruitment, focus group, and other programs. This Sr. Director is expected to maintain close communication with the Marketing & Communications, Patient Education and Community Engagement Teams to ensure alignment with enterprise-wide partnership goals and strategy.

Additional responsibilities focus on monitoring the current state and future trends in advancements of arthritis health practices and patients care, ensuring alignment between our foundation’s scientific and mission delivery programs. The position will manage the existing Partner for Patients (P4P) program focused on promoting awareness and referrals of patients to AF.  The Sr. Director will also be tasked with building and maintaining effective relationships with key opinion leaders in rheumatology, OA research, orthopedics, physical therapy, exercise science, pain management, among others, establishing a regular cadence of interaction to ensure engagement in and external feedback for AF activities and working closely with the AF Science Research Leads in every arthritis therapeutic area.

1. Leads the development of enterprise-wide partnership strategies for engaging key major academic centers, health care delivery institutions, and national non-profit HCP membership organizations.
2. Establishes and achieves effective goals for assigned portfolio of key accounts that are consistent with organization’s overall business plan.
3. Manages the coordination with the internal stakeholders to achieve partnership business objectives and to fulfill the mutually agreed upon Foundation-wide business commitments.
4. Maintains current working knowledge of medical trends and specific arthritis patient needs; regularly reviews medical literature and data trends from internal programs focused on patients.
5. Develops and manages organizational position statements on key topics and emerging issues soliciting external advice from physicians, researchers, and patients.
6. Directly oversees, develops, and implements a strategic plan for interactions with health care practitioners (including managing the existing P4P Program).
7. Represents the organization at meetings, scientific conferences, and other events.
8. Makes significant and proactive contributions to developing a DEI strategy for engaging with diverse patient groups.
9. Directly interacts with Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee (MSAC) Members and presents updates at MSAC meetings.
10.  Supervises Director of Patient Engagement.
11. Creates strategies for increasing the engagement of multiple stakeholders with the Arthritis Foundation.

1. Master’s Degree preferred with a minimum of 8 years of progressive program management experience within a voluntary health organization. An advanced degree from a related field, such as public health, health education, or health promotion, or equivalent combination of education/experience will also be considered acceptable.
2. Health Science PhD, Health Allied Science Degree or MBA degrees considered a plus.
3. Demonstrated experience and knowledge of current medical and scientific trends related to arthritis and related conditions.
4. Previous background and experience working within the fields of orthopedics, surgery, exercise science, rehabilitation, rheumatology or other health-related fields dealing with arthritis patients considered a plus.
5. Strong experience with tracking and interpreting scientific literature and succinctly summarizing the key points in written and presentation form.
6. Proven ability to build and maintain positive collaborative relationships with physicians, scientists, other health care providers and key opinion leaders across a range of disciplines.
7. Proven ability to organize and facilitate roundtables and expert panels to achieve the desired consensus.
8. Experience supporting the development of corporate strategies and sponsorships that fund health initiatives.
9. Demonstrated success with facilitating partnerships, including developing plans for the implementation of short- and long-term strategic plans for partnership development, undertaking new initiatives and projects to recruit new partners and develop relationships.
10. Prior experience and demonstrated ability to develop and implement a communications strategy that galvanizes stakeholders, provides essential information to them, and builds the operational research partnerships.
11. Prior program management and supervisory experience.
12. Previous interactions with and experience driving consensus among multiple stakeholder groups