Strategic Projects Lead

About the Role We're looking for a Strategic Projects Lead to work directly with our leadership on a portfolio of high-priority initiatives. This opportunity is built for a strong, strategic doer who combines excellent project management skills with an analytical toolkit to bring real, high value work to life. The ideal candidate will need to credibly move between workforce development, commercial insurance launch activities, payer strategy, and partnership support depending on where the company's greatest need is in a given week. You'll get broad exposure across the business while directly making an impact on our most important initiatives - helping to drive forward results at a mission driven organization transforming healthcare for families. What You'll Do - Examples of high priority projects you'll execute (not exhaustive) Doula Workforce Expansion Support the build-out of EMBRACE, Partum's doula training and certification program, working alongside the program's dedicated lead on workforce pipeline initiatives, including peer-led apprenticeship and hospital-based apprenticeship models. Help translate workforce strategy into operational plans - timelines, tracking systems, and materials needed to move initiatives from design into launch. Payer relations support Support the strategic and operational work of expanding Partum's relationships with payer partners. This includes the launch of doula care services onto commercial payer networks, working alongside leadership and our billing operations team as we bring new commercial products live. Help coordinate cross-functional readiness for commercial launches - translating payer requirements and contract terms into internal action items, and tracking progress against launch milestones. Note: this role supports the strategy and coordination of the commercial insurance launch, not day-to-day billing, claims, or credentialing mechanics, which are owned by our billing operations function. Partnerships & Business Development Provide overflow capacity to our health system partnerships and business development efforts as needed - supporting deal materials, research, scheduling, and follow-up so senior leaders can stay focused on the relationships themselves. Help keep the partnership pipeline organized and moving, stepping in on discrete workstreams (RFP responses, data requests, partner onboarding tasks) as capacity allows. What Success Looks Like in the First 6 Months Meaningful progress across all strategic projects assigned, with clear timelines and project management in place. EMBRACE workforce initiatives are live in the market and helping more trainees get from the classroom to earning income doing work they love. Relationships across our major payer partners are clarified and deepened. Opportunities in motion are moving forward and new opportunities are being explored. Commercial insurance launch is humming, and we're continuing to expand the number of families we can serve with their covered benefits. Clear, cross-team communication is happening regularly to identify and move on opportunities and knock down obstacles. Partnerships and BD leaders report that overflow support meaningfully increased their capacity to advance the pipeline. You've built a track record as someone who can pick up an ambiguous, high-priority initiative and drive it to a concrete outcome. Who You Are 3-6 years of experience in a fast-paced startup, consulting, or healthcare operations environment, with a track record of managing multiple concurrent priorities. An all around-strategist - you're energized by variety and can context-switch between workforce strategy, insurance operations, and partnership support within the same week without losing momentum. Depth with digital health, specifically payer and/or provider - direct experience in maternal health, doula care, or healthcare delivery is a plus but not required. Strong project management instincts: you can take a loosely defined goal, break it into a plan, and drive it forward with minimal oversight. A demonstrated ability to translate strategy into real world operations and a passion for doing so- you aren't just focused on creating decks; you are a doer and are energized by delivering tangible results. A self-starter, growth-minded operator who's excited to help build the playbook rather than execute against an existing one - you'll be defining a lot of this role as you go. Excellent written and verbal communication - you'll be producing materials and updates for our CEO and cross-functional leaders regularly. Compensation & Level This role is structured as contract-to-hire, with a target to start as a full-time employee within 3-6 months pending performance and mutual fit. Full-time compensation: $115,000-165,000 base plus benefits. Contract-phase compensation will be discussed during the interview process and aligned to anticipated Full-Time compensation rate This is an individual-contributor role reporting directly to the CEO and COO, with scope to grow into a broader strategy or operations leadership role as the company scales. Location: Remote / Hybrid available in Chicago #J-18808-Ljbffr Gofractional