Vice President, Strategy and Operations

United Health Group is a health care and well-being company that's dedicated to improving the health outcomes of millions around the world. We are comprised of two distinct and complementary businesses, United Healthcare and Optum, working to build a better health system for all. Here, your contributions matter as they will help transform health care for years to come. Make an impact with a team that shares your passion for helping others.

Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

The Vice President of Strategy and Operations is an innovative senior leader responsible for shaping, operationalizing, and accelerating the People Team strategy, with a significant focus on leading the People Team Reinvention. This role integrates strategic insight, operating rigor, and transformation leadership to drive the organization's most critical people priorities and enable scaled, high impact execution.

Reporting to the SVP, Strategy, Talent & Innovation (ST&I), this leader will partner closely with peers across the People Team and with cross functional enterprise leaders to translate strategy into action, ensure disciplined execution, and deliver meaningful transformation outcomes-while orchestrating a unified, enterprisefirst approach.

The Vice President leads a team of project, process, and operational professionals and indirectly guides and aligns a network of workstream leads responsible for People Team Reinvention initiatives. This executive ensures integration and alignment of enterprise wide talent, culture, workforce, and HR operational priorities, enabling the People Team to deliver consistent, scaled, high impact capabilities that support business growth, foster a culture of innovation and performance excellence, and elevate employee and leader experiences.

Hybrid in MN:
This position follows a hybrid schedule with four in-office days per week.

Primary Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership & Enterprise Alignment

• Shape, operationalize, and accelerate the People Team strategic agenda in alignment with enterprise priorities
• Partner with the CPO and People Leadership Team to define long-term strategic direction, performance goals, and transformation outcomes
• Understand the business and functional aligned People Team priorities and annual business plans to help drive strategic clarity and alignment across key priorities for the People Team and across the Strategy, Talent, and Innovation team

Transformation & Reinvention Leadership

• Lead the multi-year People Team Reinvention, ensuring strong stakeholder engagement and alignment, disciplined execution, strong governance, and measurable business value
• Orchestrate cross-functional transformation initiatives that ensure enhance enterprise capability, operating model effectiveness, AI and technology innovation and workforce experience
• Champion a culture of innovation, simplification, and continuous improvement
• Ensure strong change management and communication plans are established and operationalized

Project and Portfolio Management

• Lead a PMO team aligned to deliver key enterprise priorities for the People Team
• Ensure business cases and/or project charters are completed with clear outcomes, milestones and KPIs
• Establish simple yet clear frameworks that translate strategy into actionable plans supported by robust metrics and performance management
• Actively sequence and prioritize, including making tradeoff decisions, to protect and effectuate the right outcomes
• Ensure clear roles, responsibilities and governance to ensure projects are delivered on-time and with high quality outcomes and results

Operational Excellence & Planning

• Oversee strategic planning, operating rhythms, business planning cycles, and executive reporting including MBRs and Board materials
• Strengthen Strategy, Talent and Innovation team operational rigor through portfolio governance, resource alignment, and operational standardization
• Provide HR operations support for the Strategy, Talent & Innovation organization

Executive Advisory & Enterprise Collaboration

• Serve as a trusted advisor to the SVP, Strategy, Talent and Innovation leader, CPOs and People Leadership Team and extended leadership team bringing insights, foresight, and strategic recommendations
• Build strong relationships across business segments to drive enterprise-first execution of people strategies
• Lead the People Team functional transformation and Reinvention efforts and provide regular workstream and Steer Co updates aligned to established operating rhythms

You'll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role as well as provide development for other roles you may be interested in.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree (MBA, MHRIR, MS Strategy, etc.) strongly preferred

• 15+ years of progressive experience in Human Resources

• 7+ years of senior-level experience as a strategic Human Resources business partner with prior…