Director of Clinical Advising & Innovation (Reproductive Healthcare - Remote)

Upstream USA • Boston, MA

2d • Remote

About The Position

Upstream USA is a national nonprofit dedicated to ensuring equitable, patient-centered contraceptive care is available to everyone. Founded in 2014, Upstream works to ensure individuals can make fully informed, autonomous decisions about contraceptive methods. The organization is the largest contraceptive organization in the country, improving contraceptive care in primary care settings across 37 states and Washington, D.C. Upstream is evolving and pursuing innovative paths for streamlined access to contraceptive services. The organization operates with a culture of aggressive growth and a focus on measurable outcomes, supported by venture philanthropy. Their 2030 Goal is to partner with organizations reaching 5 million patients of reproductive age. Upstream was a 2023 Audacious Project recipient and has been featured in publications like Harvard Public Health, Bloomberg, and MedPage Today. They welcome individuals driven by impact and scale.

Requirements

• MD, NP, or PA with 8-10+ years of clinical and leadership experience in clinical services or public health.
• Strong clinical background in contraceptive care and reproductive health equity.
• 8+ years of experience managing multi-disciplinary clinical teams or complex projects in a healthcare setting or with health services operations.
• Demonstrated experience supporting innovation from ideation to implementation, including through health service redesign, clinical product development, or leading innovation sprints (rapid prototyping, user-centered design).
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills; the ability to synthesize complex data, develop insights, and translate findings into actionable recommendations.
• Proven track record of leading, mentoring, and elevating teams; able to build capability, set direction, and inspire high performance.
• Experience supporting teams through periods of change whether driven by internal or external forces.
• Exceptional relationship-building and cross-functional leadership capabilities, including a track record of influencing and aligning senior leaders without direct authority.
• Familiarity with project management tools and frameworks; experience managing large, multi-workstream initiatives, including prioritization, scoping, resourcing, and operational execution.
• Superior communication skills, with the ability to craft and deliver clear, compelling narratives for executive audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to thrive in fast-paced, high-growth, and highly collaborative environments, with comfort navigating ambiguity and shifting priorities.
• Commitment to Upstream’s mission, equity goals, and values, including the ability to bring an inclusive lens to strategic decision-making and organizational planning.
• Experience with nonprofit organizations, or mission-driven environments.
• Experience working closely with executive teams, boards, or senior decision-makers.
• The ability to work in the weeds of a project while maintaining a high-level strategic perspective.
• The ability to move at the speed of innovation while ensuring program impact remains clinically measurable and aligned with the Logic Model.
• Deep understanding of healthcare workflows in diverse settings (e.g., FQHCs, large systems) and how to hardwire new clinical practices into them.
• Exceptional ability to lead and influence high-level internal specialists and navigate the friction between design and delivery.
• Ability to navigate cross-functional environments and translate clinical needs for technical and operational audiences, while avoiding program debt.
• A proactive desire to disrupt existing workflows to improve patient access and provider experience.
• Ability to identify and leverage generative AI tools (such as LLMs, image generators, or industry-specific copilots) to streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and enhance overall output quality while maintaining the proper human checkpoints.
• Proficiency in crafting effective prompts to achieve desired outcomes and the critical thinking skills necessary to audit, fact-check, and refine AI-generated content for accuracy and brand alignment.
• A foundational understanding of the ethical implications of AI, including data privacy, bias recognition, and the responsible use of company information in third-party AI environments.
• Demonstrates the ability to remain focused, adaptable, and solution-oriented in the face of challenges, setbacks, or ambiguity.
• Approaches obstacles with a growth mindset and maintains a steady commitment to goals, even under pressure or changing circumstances; resilient.
• Must be comfortable and able to participate in an on-camera culture during meetings to support connection, engagement, teaming and collaboration.

Nice To Haves

• Background in health service research, clinical program design, and/or implementation science is preferred.
• Familiarity with project management tools and frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute operational plans that align clinical work, including clinical innovation, with the broader strategic and financial goals of the organization.
• Ensure clinical expertise is a design partner from the discovery phase of initiatives to improve contraceptive access.
• Oversee the assignment of clinical advisors to specific workstreams, whether as ad hoc or embedded consultants.
• Develop frameworks and tools that support the Clinical Team in prioritization, decision-making, and execution against mission, vision and annual vertical goals.
• Design and oversee rapid cycle clinical program enhancements.
• Drive generative thinking within the Clinical Strategy Team, lead innovation sprints to test new tools, workflows, or setting-specific adaptations.
• Establish clinical guardrails and support clinical excellence in pilots, ensuring that innovation never compromises patient safety or medical standards.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, the Clinical Strategy Team, and other stakeholders to design and integrate clinical program updates seamlessly into existing clinical workflows.
• Support the adaptation of clinical program elements for new healthcare environments.
• Partner with the VP of Strategy on developing and deploying program pilots, providing clinical guidance on operational workflows as well as insights on clinical ROI; gathering real-world feedback from field testing to inform the iterative program updates and scaling decisions.
• Serve as the senior clinical advisor at innovation and cross-functional tables, anticipating interdependencies and risks, navigating complexity, and providing air-cover for the Clinical Team, where necessary.
• Advise cross-functional teams during early exploration and planning for new opportunities involving clinical considerations before transitioning operational execution to a consulting Clinical Team member.
• Nurture relationships with internal and external stakeholders to foster the smooth integration of the clinical team into collaborative relationships that advance workstreams.
• Collaborate with the CSDT operations team to ensure requests for clinical input, redesign and innovation are optimally managed; monitor and actively manage the Clinical Team’s workload for progress against pre-determined timelines, flagging risks or the need for additional support from vertical leadership.
• Partner with the analysts to ensure clinical program metrics are defined, tracked and findings integrated into operations to ensure seamless workflow.
• Identify and mitigate risks to program fidelity, impact, and resource usage.
• Recruit, onboard, schedule, and evaluate Clinical Strategy Team staff to ensure adequate coverage and high morale; lead team meetings; and facilitate change management.
• In collaboration with our Strategy team, manage generative thinking among the clinical team to support the surfacing of new ideas, models and approaches for advancing Upstream’s mission, guide desk research and leverage opportunity screens to identify the most promising ideas.
• Manage the capacity and professional development of the Clinical Strategy Team, ensuring the team maintains deep expertise in contraceptive care and implementation best practices.
• Additional duties and projects as assigned.

Benefits

• medical
• dental
• vision
• life insurance
• long and short term disability
• 401K with a match
• generous vacation, personal, sick and holiday time off
• parental leave
• professional development
• a fitness and cell phone allowance for all full time employees and part time employees who work a minimum of 24 hours per week.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director