Executive Director Community Health Market Activation - Remote

UnitedHealth 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, UnitedHealthcare 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 Executive Director, Community Impact is the market-facing leader responsible for advancing community-centered impact strategies from design through implementation. This role builds and sustains trusted relationships across local communities, convenes cross-sector partners, translates approved strategies into actionable intervention plans, and drives disciplined execution that produces measurable community, operational, business, and reputational value.

The Executive Director serves as a key connector among community stakeholders, organizational leadership, market teams, Intervention Directors, and enterprise enabling functions. The role ensures interventions are informed by community voice, data, evidence-based practice, and operational feasibility while maintaining alignment with enterprise priorities, partner commitments, compliance expectations, funding requirements, communications needs, and long-term sustainability goals.

The ideal candidate brings executive relationship management, community engagement expertise, operational discipline, program delivery experience, matrixed leadership experience, sound judgment, and a demonstrated ability to manage complex public-private partnerships in dynamic community and market environments.

You'll enjoy the flexibility to work remotely * from anywhere within the U.S. as you take on some tough challenges. For all hires in the Minneapolis or Washington, D.C. area, you will be required to work in the office a minimum of four days per week.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Community Engagement, Partner Convening, and Market Coordination
• Serve as the primary market-facing leader and activation lead for assigned community health markets and initiatives
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with community organizations, residents, local leaders, providers, public agencies, employers, philanthropy, academic institutions, advocacy groups, and implementation partners
• Convene cross-sector partners and multidisciplinary teams to align around shared goals, coordinated action plans, role clarity, timelines, dependencies, and accountability expectations
• Develop engagement strategies that ensure community voice, lived experience, and local priorities are reflected in intervention planning, implementation, and continuous improvement
• Identify emerging community needs, barriers, opportunities, partner concerns, policy shifts, and market dynamics that may affect intervention priorities or execution
• Foster inclusive, culturally responsive, transparent, and collaborative engagement practices that strengthen trust and sustain partnership momentum
• Intervention Co-Development, Program Delivery, and Implementation Follow-Through
• Collaborate with community partners, product leads, and internal teams to co-develop interventions that address community priorities, root causes, and market opportunities
• Translate approved market strategies into actionable activation plans, milestones, workstreams, management routines, and partner commitments
• Own day-to-day implementation follow-through for assigned interventions, including partner touchpoints, meeting cadence, deliverables, timelines, issue tracking, dependencies, and routine status updates
• Ensure interventions are informed by data, community insights, evidence-based practices, operational feasibility, compliance requirements, and sustainability considerations
• Support product teams by providing strategic guidance, coaching, community navigation support, partnership development assistance, and barrier resolution
• Maintain market-level documentation, including stakeholder maps, workplans, partner commitments, funding requirements, risk logs, decision records, escalation expectations, communications considerations, and status updates
• Performance Management, Measurement, and Continuous Improvement
• Track market and intervention performance against goals, milestones, partner deliverables, success measures, funding requirements, sustainability objectives, and community impact expectations
• Use data, partner feedback, community input, and operational insights to assess progress, identify performance gaps, and guide continuous improvement
• Drive corrective action planning when program performance, partnership execution, timelines, deliverables, or outcomes are not meeting expectations
• Promote shared accountability, transparent reporting, and disciplined follow-through among internal teams and external partners
• Prepare executive-ready market performance updates, issue summaries, decision briefs, portfolio inputs, and reporting materials for leadership reviews and governance forums
• Cross-Functional Integration, Enterprise Alignment, and Risk Escalation
• Serve as the connector between product, market implementation teams, community stakeholders, and enterprise enabling functions to keep execution aligned with enterprise priorities, brand expectations, legal and regulatory standards, measurement requirements, and communications needs
• Coordinate internal operational, legal, compliance, finance, communications, measurement, strategy, and business partners to resolve barriers and support successful implementation
• Partner with leaders across the team to align on relationship activity, expansion opportunities, funding prospects, senior relationship engagement, executive touchpoints, and escalation needs
• Escalate strategic issues when market development, braided capital, senior relationship engagement, expansion strategy, material partner risk, funding gaps, reputational considerations, or senior leadership alignment is required
• Preserve the original intervention intent, partner value proposition, community priorities, market narrative, and long-term sustainability pathway through launch and implementation

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:

• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in community engagement, population health, healthcare transformation, public health, strategic partnerships, program activation, implementation leadership, account management, social impact, public sector collaboration, or related fields
• Demonstrated experience building partnerships, convening cross-sector stakeholders, and managing complex external relationships in community or market-based environments
• Experience working in matrixed organizations and influencing internal and external stakeholders without direct authority
• Proven ability to translate strategy into executable plans and lead disciplined implementation across multiple workstreams, partners, timelines, dependencies, and priorities
• Proven solid executive communication, facilitation, relationship management, problem-solving, decision support, and issue-resolution skills
• Proven ability to manage ambiguity, identify risks, escalate appropriately, and maintain momentum in complex operating environments

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in healthcare, managed care, public health, social drivers of health, health equity, community-based care, workforce development, public-private partnership models, or collective impact initiatives
• Experience working with underserved communities and designing engagement strategies that are inclusive, culturally responsive, and community-informed
• Knowledge of community health improvement frameworks, systems change approaches, health-related social needs, and market-based intervention models
• Familiarity with portfolio management tools, dashboards, scorecards, governance materials, risk logs, evaluation frameworks, and executive reporting practices
• Proven track record of supporting scalable initiatives with measurable community, operational, partner, business, or reputational value

Core Competencies

• Executive Relationship Management
• Community Engagement and Trust Building
• Strategic Partnership Development
• Facilitation and Convening Leadership
• Operational Discipline and Follow-Through
• Program Delivery and Implementation Management
• Market Performance Management
• Cross-Functional Leadership
• Risk Identification and Escalation
• Strategic Judgment and Systems Thinking
• Communication, Influence, and Adaptability in Ambiguous Environments

Success Measures

• Assigned markets demonstrate measurable progress against community health goals, intervention milestones, partner deliverables, and sustainability objectives
• Community partners demonstrate role clarity, accountability, engagement, follow-through, and contribution to market performance
• Interventions reflect community voice, data-informed planning, operational feasibility, and alignment with enterprise priorities
• Performance gaps, implementation risks, barriers, funding gaps, partner concerns, and escalation needs are identified early and managed effectively
• Market documentation, status reporting, leadership updates, and decision materials are accurate, timely, and executive-ready
• Community health programs produce measurable community impact, operational improvement, partner value, business relevance, and reputational benefit
• Implementation insights and lessons learned inform market refinement, replication decisions, thought leadership, and future strategy development

Working Conditions and Travel

• Regular travel to assigned communities, markets, partner sites, and community events may be required
• Participation in evening or community-based meetings may occasionally be necessary
• Ability to work effectively across office, virtual, market, and community settings

*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group's Telecommuter Policy

Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you'll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $159,300 - $273,200 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.

Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone-of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location and income-deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalized groups and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes - an enterprise priority reflected in our mission.    

UnitedHealth Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer under applicable law and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, religion, age, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.    

UnitedHealth Group is a drug - free workplace. Candidates are required to pass a drug test before beginning employment.