Associate Vice President, Strategic Planning

The Strategic Planning Lead partners with Advocate Health leaders in formulating strategy and developing enterprise strategic business plans inclusive of business analyses, strategic initiative design, and roadmaps to drive significant strategic decisions and actions leading to system impacts. The Lead is responsible for owning the development and deployment of enterprise strategy planning capabilities and supporting effect development, implementation and throughput of strategic projects and initiatives.

Reporting the Strategic Lifecycle Lead, the role employs industry-leading best practices and methods, market and competitive intelligence, contemporary strategic ideas, business planning expertise and strong project and stakeholder management while remaining agile, sensitive to context and ensuring strategic alignment. This role works closely with the strategy function leaders and team members as well as with enterprise leaders across shared service functions, clinical service areas, and division operations.

• Lead development and implementation of capabilities within the planning phase of the strategic lifecycle framework.
• Design and deploy structures, tools, and processes among the strategy team and other enterprise and divisional leaders to ensure an orchestrated approach to planning that aligns with the enterprise strategy and enables sound decision-making.
• Develop industry leading methodologies for developing strategies, strategic plans, business plans, analyses, and other project approaches to drive quality, consistent outcomes as well as build teammate competencies.
• Own planning stage for strategic projects, including planning inputs, best practice deliverables, and decision-gates.

• Engage and collaborate with executive leaders across shared services and operational functional areas to build cohesive plans and strategies leveraging industry knowledge, strategic planning expertise and enterprise strategic rationale.
• Partner with Lead, Strategic Insights & Economics to assess competitor activity, industry trends and internal performance to inform plan development and advise strategic initiative leaders.
• Lead development of integrated roadmaps that synchronize functional plans with the enterprise strategy.
• Guide analysis and facilitate cross‑functional planning to sequence deployment of shared services resources across the strategic portfolio of projects.
• Facilitate and bring thought leadership to cross‑functional engagement and coordination, through events, standing forums and other multi‑modal engagement methods.

• In partnership with strategy and operational executives, drive significant and complex enterprise strategic planning and strategic business planning projects.
• Develop, manage, prioritize, and execute multiple, concurrent projects involving multiple constituencies, including scoping, resources and managing projects to senior leader expectations.
• Lead and / or contribute to the appropriate communication of strategic plans, analyses, and other project related work.

• Lead development of planning discipline best practice knowledge and skills across strategy function team.
• Responsible for team development, coaching, professional guidance, and high performance of the team within direct area of responsibility and across the strategy department as part of the strategy leadership team.
• Leads and drives Strategy departmental initiatives as a member of the leadership team.
• Decisions are guided by the enterprise strategy and actions directly impact the enterprise strategy.

Bachelor's degree in business, healthcare or related field from an accredited college or university is required.

• Minimum 10 years of experience in health systems management, business planning and / or strategic planning.
• Experience in cross‑functional leadership and program management in complex organizations.
• Familiarity with academic medical health system operations, strategic planning processes, and leadership facilitation.

• Demonstrated executive presence among other leaders and executives.
• Demonstrated expertise in business planning and strategic planning.
• Demonstrated ability to be comfortable in ambiguity.
• Sophisticated and nuanced communication skills, including written, power point and verbal communications.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to navigate complex systems.
• Knowledge of issues facing integrated health delivery systems.
• Knowledge of the health industry and major trends.
• Skilled user of Microsoft Office suite of tools.