VP/Head of Engineering (IT)

Head of Engineering (IT) | CTO (Hands-on)

Location: Nashville, Tennessee (on-site) Industry: Artificial Intelligence / Health Technology This retained s earch is being conducted exclusively by ITAC Solutions on behalf of a confidential client.

The Opportunity

Our client is a well-capitalized, founder-led health technology company built around one of the most respected bodies of clinical knowledge in sports medicine. The company was founded in partnership with a nationally recognized physician-leader whose decades of clinical practice, research, and education have shaped the field, and it is turning that expertise into an AI-powered platform serving athletes, parents, coaches, athletic trainers, and organizations across the sports and healthcare ecosystem.

The company is based in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the country’s leading healthcare and health technology hubs, and is seeking a Chief Technology Officer to lead its technology strategy and execution. This is a foundational technical leadership role at an early-stage company building a genuinely proprietary AI platform, not a general-purpose tool layered on top of someone else’s data.

This leader will own the architecture, development, security, scalability, and continued evolution of the company’s technology platform and its underlying proprietary intelligence layer, working closely with the founders, executive leadership, clinical experts, and outside technology partners to turn the company’s vision into a scalable, defensible technology business.

This is a hands-on leadership position. The right candidate is equally comfortable setting long-term technical strategy and staying personally engaged in architecture, technical problem-solving, and driving products from concept through deployment.

What You Will Do

• Own the technology strategy, architecture, and technical roadmap for the company
• Lead the continued development of the company’s proprietary AI intelligence layer and AI-driven products, including RAG, model orchestration, and applied LLM capabilities
• Oversee the company’s AI, data, application, and cloud infrastructure
• Manage both internal engineering hires and outside development partners
• Build and lead the internal technology organization as the company grows
• Develop the company’s data strategy, including how proprietary knowledge, clinical information, and user data are structured, protected, and used
• Establish strong standards around cybersecurity, privacy, access controls, and data governance, including HIPAA where relevant
• Protect the company’s intellectual property and ensure it maintains ownership and control of its technology, codebase, and proprietary intelligence
• Support technology integrations and partnerships with health systems, sports organizations, and other enterprise partners
• Own technical budgets, KPIs, and resource planning, with clear visibility to the executive team on progress, opportunities, and risk

WhoWe Are Looking For

Candidates should have significant experience building and scaling technology products from an early or startup stage, ideally within AI, healthcare technology, data platforms, or SaaS. Deep, hands-on knowledge of modern AI systems, including large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, model orchestration, and data infrastructure, is essential, along with experience architecting scalable cloud-based software.

This role calls for someone who has led internal engineering teams and managed outside development partners at the same time, and who has taken a product from early development through commercial scale. Strong grounding in cybersecurity, data privacy, and technology risk management is important, as is the ability to evaluate technical decisions through both an engineering and a business lens.

Just as important as technical background is disposition. This is an entrepreneurial, fast-moving, early-stage environment, and the ideal candidate is energized by ambiguity rather than needing a mature organization already in place. Strong communication skills matter, since this person will work closely with both technical and non-technical executives, including nationally recognized clinical experts.

Experience in healthcare, sports medicine, digital health, or HIPAA-regulated environments is highly valuable but not required. Given Nashville’s depth as a healthcare and health IT market, candidates already established in the region’s healthcare technology ecosystem are especially well positioned for this opportunity.