Executive Operations Leader Jobs in Tennessee (NOW HIRING)

Overview
At SCRI Oncology Partners, we understand the challenges and fears that come with a cancer diagnosis. That's why our Nashville-based team is committed to providing compassionate, patient-centered cancer care. We bring the most advanced therapies and clinical trials to Middle Tennessee, developing personalized treatment plans and providing supportive care for patients and their loved ones throughout the cancer journey. Our dedicated team of oncology experts is committed to transforming cancer treatment through innovative research and compassionate, comprehensive care. We leverage our extensive experience and the latest advancements in cancer research to provide our patients with cutting-edge treatment. In addition to our regional oncology center, we conduct research through clinical trials in partnership with SCRI a global leader in oncology research that has been a leader in clinical trials for more than 30 years. The research being done at SCRI is the backbone of many new cancer treatments approved by the FDA and put into use today.
The Executive Director serves as the senior operational leader for SCRI Oncology Partners, responsible for driving organizational performance, operational stability, and strategic growth. Reporting within a physician-led dyad model, this role develops and executes short- and long-term strategic and operational plans, ensures strong financial performance, and aligns practice initiatives with enterprise priorities. The Executive Director translates strategy into disciplined execution by optimizing operations, improving efficiency, addressing turnover and workflow challenges, and fostering a high-performing, accountable culture with strong leadership visibility and employee engagement. In partnership with Sarah Cannon Research Institute (SCRI), the Executive Director leads the integration of clinical care and research operations, effectively navigating a complex dual-operating environment to align stakeholders, reduce workflow friction, and enhance patient experience, access, and outcomes. Additionally, this role drives market growth and strengthens the practice's competitive position through physician partnerships, referral development, and community engagement, requiring a balance of strategic vision, financial acumen, operational expertise, and the ability to influence across a highly matrixed organization.
Responsibilities
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
Core Leadership Execution

• Leads development and execution of short- and long-range operating plans and budgets, ensuring alignment to organizational priorities, disciplined execution, and delivery of financial and operational targets.
• Establishes and enforces operating discipline across the practice, including standardized workflows, onboarding, and performance management to improve consistency, accountability, and efficiency.
• Drives operational stabilization efforts, focusing on reducing turnover, improving engagement, strengthening leadership visibility, and building a culture of accountability and execution.
• Maintains real-time visibility into business and operational performance, proactively identifying risks and advising leadership with clear, actionable recommendations.
• Ensures full regulatory compliance and risk management across clinical and research operations.
• Builds and leads a high-performance team, setting clear expectations and holding leaders accountable for results.
• Owns enterprise-level performance management, including tracking and communicating progress against key operational, financial, and strategic metrics.

SCRI-Specific Operational Leadership

• Leads integration of clinical care and research operations, ensuring alignment between the oncology practice and SCRI to reduce workflow friction and improve coordination.
• Resolves operational bottlenecks between standard-of-care and clinical research workflows, improving patient throughput, scheduling, and resource utilization.
• Drives cross-functional alignment across practice and research leadership, influencing without direct authority to ensure aligned execution.
• Balances research priorities with core practice performance, ensuring clinical trial activity supports access, growth, and financial outcomes.

Growth, Market, and Financial Leadership

• Drives market growth strategy, including referral expansion, competitive positioning, and service line development.
• Leads business development and expansion efforts across clinical and research opportunities.
• Owns contract performance and financial optimization, including payer strategy and margin improvement.
• Drives cost discipline while supporting strategic investment for growth.
• Leads payer negotiations and pricing strategy to ensure competitive positioning.
• Oversees financial modeling and analytics for RFPs, bids, and complex arrangements.

Physician Partnership and External Leadership

• Leads physician partnership within a dyad model, aligning operational execution with physician leadership priorities and USON strategy.
• Drives physician alignment on operations, growth, and research integration.
• Leads and holds accountable referral growth and outreach efforts to drive volume growth.
• Serves as a visible leader in the market, building relationships with referring providers, health systems, and community stakeholders.

Critical Experiences:
Strategic Alignment: Formulate and execute a long-term business strategy based on market data and an enterprise-first approach. Lead the team to align work against key strategic levers.
Run a P&L: Lead a P&L through multiple business cycles. Make trade-offs to deliver financial performance and analyze trends to meet revenue/AOP targets.
Lead Large Teams (250+): Lead and inspire large organizations. Drive vision and purpose.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
• Bachelors degree in Accounting, Finance, or related business field (MHA, MBA, or MS in Health Administration preferred).
• Minimum seven years of experience in healthcare management and operations, including at least three years in a managerial capacity.
• Demonstrated leadership within an oncology practice, with strong preference for experience overseeing clinical research operations.
Preferred Experience
• Community-based oncology leadership experience strongly preferred
• Experience in physician practice management
• Exposure to clinical research operations
• Infusion services experience highly desirable
• Multi-site ambulatory healthcare leadership experience
Critical Leadership Competencies
• Operational execution
• Change management
• Influencing without authority
• Relationship building
• Team leadership and culture development
• Physician partnership
• Strategic communication
• Business development and community engagement
The successful candidate must balance operational excellence with strategic growth initiatives in a highly competitive environment.
Skills and Abilities
• Organizational Planning Skills: Knowledge about how their departments and employees interface and work together. Initiates organizational improvements to enhance productivity and works with others to institutionalize them, when appropriate
• Teambuilding and Leadership: Creates a climate in which people want to do their best; can motivate many kinds of direct reports and team or project members; can assess each persons hot button and use it to get the best out of him/her; pushes tasks and decisions down; empowers others; invites input from each person and shares ownership and visibility; makes each individual feel his/her work is important, is someone people like working for and with.
• Negotiating Skills: Can negotiate skillfully in tough situations with both internal and external groups; can settle differences with minimum noise; can win concessions without damaging relationships; can be direct and forceful as well as diplomatic; gains trust quickly of other parties to the negotiations; has a good sense of timing.
Conflict Resolution Skills: Steps up to conflicts, seeing them as opportunities; reads situations quickly; good at focused listening; can hammer out tough agreements and settle disputes equitably; can find common ground and get cooperation with minimum noise.
• Change Manager: Serves as a catalyst for initiating change and innovation within the practice. Demonstrates and involves others in learning about ongoing needs for change. Supports experimentation to test new approaches.
• Effective written and oral communication and interpersonal relationship skills: Consistently shares information freely, accurately, and clearly with various levels in the organization. Uses a variety of communication modes to ensure mutual understanding. Anticipates in advance the needs of different audiences and tailors presentation media appropriately. Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down and sideways inside and outside the organization, builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably.
• Time management/Multi-tasking: Uses his/her time effectively and efficiently; values time; concentrates his/her efforts on the more important priorities; gets more done in less time than others; can attend to a broader range of activities.
• Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.
• Credibility: Earned over time and gained through trust-building, professionalism, maturity and exhibited confidence.