Area Director, DC

Mission

Neko is redefining what prevention means, from treating illness when it arrives, to sustaining health before it's ever at risk. Our mission: make data-driven, preventative care accessible to more people, before symptoms appear.

In a single, non-invasive visit under an hour, proprietary technology and direct clinical care combine to deliver personalised, actionable insights. It's a team that thinks in 10x, not 10%. Every role here plays a part in building a world where prevention is the norm, and where your work genuinely helps people live longer, healthier lives.

Overview

As the Clinic Area Lead, DC, you will be accountable for bringing Neko Health’s operating model, culture, and member‑first standards to life across a growing portfolio of clinics in DC.

This role sits at the intersection of leadership, execution, and local adaptation — ensuring that global ways of working translate into consistently high‑quality experiences on the ground, while continuing to mature and evolve as we scale.

Neko Health has now entered the US market starting with New York with a clear operating philosophy, emerging global processes, clinical standards, and service principles already in place ready to scale across the US. While these are still being built and refined, the role is firmly focused on adoption rather than reinvention — shaping how these ways of working show up locally, strengthening them through practical execution, and enabling teams to operate with increasing confidence, consistency, and care.

Reporting to the Country Leader, US, you will own regional performance end‑to‑end — from pre‑opening readiness through sustained multi‑site operations. You will act as the cultural and operational anchor for Neko Health in DC, setting expectations, building capability, and establishing how clinics lead, operate, and serve members from day one.

What You'll Deliver in the First 6–12 Months

Bring the operating model to life

• Embed Neko Health’s operating model across the DC clinics, focusing on strong leadership behaviours, cultural norms, and consistent execution rather than net-new process design. Ensure global standard are understood, embraced and brought to life in day-to-day clinic operations

• Lead the successful local adoption of existing playbooks and standards, tailoring them thoughtfully to local regulations, team dynamics, and member expectations while preserving the integrity of Neko’s global member experience.

• Create strong clinic‑level leadership capability by coaching managers and clinical leads on how to translate standards into practice — setting clear expectations, reinforcing accountability, and role‑modelling a member‑first mindset.

• Operationalise readiness for new clinic openings by ensuring teams are culturally aligned, well‑trained, and confident in executing established processes, with clear ownership of go‑live success and early performance.

• Establish clear performance rhythms (metrics, reviews, feedback loops) that reinforce behaviours, surface issues early, and continuously improve both team effectiveness and the member experience.

• Partner closely with the Country Leader, US and central teams to ensure the global operating model works in practice locally — identifying where light adaptation is required and driving disciplined, high‑quality implementation at scale.

Clinic & Member Experience

• Ensure each clinic consistently delivers a seamless, premium member experience aligned with Neko Health's service standards and brand promise.

• Lead regional initiatives to elevate service quality based on member feedback, NPS insights, and frontline observations, iterating playbooks in real time as you learn.

• Foster a hospitality-driven culture where empathy, professionalism, and precision define every member interaction — and where that culture is embedded through training, not just expectation.

• Oversee the physical and experiential standards of all clinics — ensuring consistency in ambiance, cleanliness, and overall presentation across a growing portfolio.

Medical Quality & Compliance

• Partner with Lead Doctors to build and uphold Neko's clinical quality standards in the US context — ensuring adherence to federal and state regulatory requirements from the ground up.

• Drive continuous improvement in medical delivery and inspection readiness across all sites, establishing audit-ready documentation and escalation protocols.

• Serve as the bridge between clinic operations and the Medical Excellence team, ensuring best practices are embedded regionally through structured processes rather than informal norms.

• Mentor and develop Lead Doctors and Clinic Leads, building their leadership capabilities and accountability for quality outcomes.

Operational & Financial Performance

• Own regional operational KPIs and full P&L accountability — building the financial frameworks alongside the clinics themselves, not inheriting them.

• Design scalable operational frameworks, cost controls, and workflow efficiencies that can flex as the DC portfolio grows from four clinics to more.

• Oversee workforce planning and staffing models in collaboration with central teams — building hiring profiles, ramp plans, and scheduling logic suited to demand patterns.

• Contribute to regional business strategy, including market expansion planning, new clinic launches, and network optimisation — as someone who has been in the room from the start.

Team Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Recruit, onboard, lead, and coach a team of Clinic Leads and Lead Physicians across all assigned clinics — many of whom you will hire yourself.

• Build a strong culture of accountability, communication, and collaboration across distributed teams from day one, establishing the norms and rituals that will define how the DC team works.

• Act as the primary regional liaison between clinic teams and central functions — including Customer Support, Facilities, Workforce Planning, People Operations, Talent Acquisition, and Demand Planning.

• Champion cross-functional alignment to ensure smooth execution and a unified member and employee experience, acting as the voice of DC into the broader organisation.

Minimum Qualifications

• Proven experience in a senior operational leadership role (Area Director, Regional Director, District Leader, General Manager or equivalent) within apremium, consumer‑facing, multi‑site environment such as premium healthcare‑adjacent, wellness, fitness or technology‑enabled services with physical operations/stores.

• Ability to be based and/or local travel distance to Washington, DC as this role will be based across all the sites.

• Demonstrated success implementing and embedding established operating models, standards, and playbooks across multiple locations — driving adoption through leadership, coaching, and accountability rather than documentation alone.

• Strong track record leading clinic‑level or site‑level leaders, with the ability to build capability, reinforce culture, and translate standards into consistent day‑to‑day execution.

• Experience operating in regulated environments, with accountability for quality, compliance, and inspection readiness, ideally in partnership with medical or clinical leadership.

• Proven financial and operational acumen, including ownership of regional KPIs, budgets, and P&L performance in a scaling context.

• Ability to balance strategic perspective with hands‑on execution, particularly during periods of growth, new site openings, and organisational change.

• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, with confidence operating in a matrixed, fast‑moving organisation across central and regional teams.

• Comfort leading through ambiguity and change, with a bias toward action, continuous improvement, and disciplined execution.