Leadership Development Program Associate Jobs in Virginia

Sandy Springs Program: Operations Leadership Development Program (LDP)

A two to three year operating apprenticeship designed to grow the next generation of Ally's center, regional, and senior operations leaders.

Location: Tysons, VA based initially, with rotational placement at Ally centers across Maryland, Virginia, and DC. Travel is expected.

Reports to: VP of Operations, with a dotted line to an executive program sponsor.

Start Date: Cohort start dates in July and January. Some flexibility for the right candidate.

Please include a cover letter so we can get to know you better and understand why you believe you will be a good fit for our team. Applications submitted without a cover letter will not be considered.

Ally Behavior is a fast-growing autism therapy company, built around exceptional clinical quality and an unmatched family experience. We have grown at roughly ~70% CAGR over the last four years and we are building toward our next chapter: scaling from our current footprint to 100+ centers over the next five years.

Scaling something this important requires more than plans; it requires leaders who can translate strategy into execution, run real businesses on the ground, and do the hard, unglamorous work to drive outcomes for kids and families.

This company has been built by investing in high-potential people earlier in their career and giving them meaningful responsibility as the business scales. Many of our leaders have grown into their roles by taking ownership of hard problems, delivering impact, and earning expanded scope over time. The Sandy Springs Program continues that tradition and formalizes it.

Overall, Ally Behavior is a dynamic, fun, and rewarding place to work that offers superior growth and leadership opportunities in a supportive, engaging environment. We have a unique and collaborative culture that is driven by our diverse team of professionals and our core values of Serving Others, Treatment Excellence, All One Ally, Resourceful in Finding Solutions, and Striving to Grow. We are looking for someone to help us provide the best possible service to our clients.

The Sandy Springs Program is named after Sandy Spring, Maryland, the home of our first clinic and the place where Ally began. It is a deliberate choice. We believe great companies are built from the ground up, and that is how we intend to build our leadership team. In Sandy Spring, our early leaders learned every role it takes to run the business. They ran intake. They built the schedule. They sat with families. They worked the authorizations. They ran the center themselves. That depth of tactical knowledge is one of the biggest reasons Ally is where it is today, and it is the standard we hold our operators to as we scale. The Sandy Springs Program is how we recreate that experience, on purpose, for the next generation of Ally leaders.

That is what this program is. It is not a rotational tour for observation. It is a structured path that takes a high-potential operator from learning how a center runs, to running one, to running a region. The endpoint is a Regional Director or senior operations role inside Ally as we scale toward 100+ centers.

The Sandy Springs Program is a two to three year operating apprenticeship for hungry, high-aptitude operators who want to lead businesses. You will be developed through a structured sequence of placements, with increasing scope and P&L responsibility at each step. You will be coached by senior leaders, paired with formal mentors, and held to the same operating bar as everyone else at Ally.

This is not a watch from the sidelines job. It is not a strategy decks and analysis only job. This is a role for someone with a do-whatever-is-necessary mindset. You will sit with intake coordinators, shadow BCBAs, build the schedule, work the authorization queue, run the parent meeting, hire the RBTs, and own the P&L. Ally wants operators who run toward the problems, not away.

At each step we will give you more than you think you can handle, support you through it, and expect you to deliver.

The program is built in three phases. Movement between phases is performance based, not time based. Strong operators move faster. The phases below reflect a typical successful path.

You start by learning how a center actually runs. This is the foundation. Without it, nothing else works.

• Embedded rotations across clinical, intake, scheduling, RCM, HR, and center operations. You will sit with the people doing the work and learn what is actually true on the ground.
• Structured curriculum covering ABA, Speech, OT and Psychology service delivery, payor and authorization mechanics, scheduling utilization, RBT and BCBA workflows, family experience, and unit economics.
• Project work tied to a specific center or function. You will own at least one deliverable that ships and matters.
• Weekly cohort sessions with senior leaders. Monthly one on ones with your executive program sponsor.

By the end of Phase 1 you should be able to walk into any Ally center and read it. You know what good looks like, where the leverage is, and what the operator in that seat is dealing with.

This is the core of the program. You take ownership of a center as the Center Manager. You are accountable for the P&L, the team, the clinical quality, and the family experience.

• Direct responsibility for a center generating roughly $2M to $8M in annual revenue.
• You manage a team of 20 to 80 staff including BCBAs, RBTs, Speech & Occupational Therapists, Psychologists, and center support roles.
• You own the operating metrics: utilization, authorization conversion, compliance, time to start, retention, family NPS, and contribution margin.
• You partner with your Clinical Director on quality and clinical outcomes. The operating side is yours.
• You hire, develop, coach, and when necessary exit team members. You set the culture in your center.
• Monthly business reviews with your VP. Quarterly executive reviews with the CEO and leadership team.

Running a center is hard. You will make mistakes. The program is built to give you a safe environment to make them, learn from them, and get better fast. You are surrounded by mentors who have run centers themselves.

Once you have proven you can run a center, we open up the next step. The specific path depends on you, the business, and where the highest impact is. Likely paths include:

• Regional Director, overseeing 6 to 12 centers as we expand. You are accountable for a regional P&L in the $15M to $70M range.
• Lead operator role on a new market launch. You stand up centers in a new geography from real estate through opening through ramp.
• Senior operations role at the corporate level, owning a horizontal function such as intake, scheduling, RCM, or center performance across the network.

Our intention is that Sandy Springs graduates become the operating backbone of Ally as we scale to 100+ centers. The people who run our regions five years from now should mostly come from this program.

Ally is not going to scale to 100+ centers by buying its operators on the open market. The talent does not exist at the volume we need, and even when it does it has been shaped by other companies with different standards. We need to build our own bench.

Sandy Springs is how we do that. We take operators with high potential, give them real responsibility early, surround them with the best clinicians and operators we have, and grow them into the leaders who will run Ally over the next decade. If you are looking for the fastest path we know of from operator to senior leader in multi-site healthcare, this is it.

Across the phases, expect to spend your time on:

• Working out of centers. You are not a corporate person who visits. You are an operator who is in the building, on the floor, in the team room, and in the parent conferences.
• Hiring and developing teams. You will recruit and coach center operators, evaluate BCBA fit, and build the bench in your center.
• Driving P&L. You will read the financials weekly, understand the drivers, and act on them. Utilization, conversion, retention, and margin will become second nature.
• Solving cross-functional problems. Authorization bottlenecks. Scheduling conflicts. Quality concerns. Parent escalations. You handle them or escalate them with a recommendation.
• Building the operating cadence. Weekly huddles, monthly business reviews, quarterly planning. You run the meetings, you own the outputs, you close the loops.
• Contributing to the network. You bring back what is working in your center, you take what other centers are doing well, and you push the whole system forward.

In 6 months: you have run a phase of the program, you have delivered measurable impact in your placement, and your VP and program sponsor would put you in front of any operator on our team.

In 12 months: you are running a center at or above plan, with strong family experience, strong clinical outcomes, and a team that wants to stay.

In 18 to 24 months: you are ready for, or already in, a Regional Director or equivalent role. You are one of the people we count on to run a meaningful piece of the business.

• You have a high-ownership, low-ego mindset and no task is below you.
• You are energized by ambiguity and you can create structure from scratch.
• You can zoom from strategy to operations to execution without losing momentum.
• You are direct, collaborative, persistent, and able to influence without authority.
• You take feedback seriously and you give it directly.
• You hold a high bar for ethics and quality in a healthcare setting.
• You want to lead a business, not just analyze one.

• 6+ years of professional experience in operations, consulting, military leadership, multi-site services, healthcare, banking, or a high-growth operating environment with a track record of measurable outcomes.
• Demonstrated leadership of people or projects with real stakes.
• Strong analytical ability. Comfort with Sheets and Excel. Comfort reading a P&L.
• Excellent written and verbal communication. Ability to drive alignment across stakeholders.
• Willingness to be physically present in centers and to relocate within the region if the business needs it.

• Experience in multi-site healthcare services, ABA, behavioral health, pediatrics, or adjacent fields.
• Familiarity with payor dynamics, authorizations, and revenue cycle.
• MBA, military service, or equivalent leadership development background.
• Prior experience running a unit, team, store, branch, or other front line P&L.
• Experience with rapid expansion, new site launches, or building operating cadence.

The program is designed around your development. You will get:

• A formal executive program sponsor from the leadership team.
• A peer mentor who is a current Center or Regional Director.
• A structured curriculum covering center operations, payor and revenue cycle mechanics, people leadership, financial management, and clinical quality.
• Direct exposure to the CEO and executive team through quarterly reviews and cohort sessions.
• Real ownership of outcomes from your first months in the program.

The goal is simple. Accelerate your growth curve by placing you in an outsized role with meaningful responsibility, surround you with the people and feedback you need to grow, and help you earn a path into broader leadership at Ally.

• Total compensation potential of OTE between $135,000 and $185,000 depending on experience and phase.
• Quarterly bonuses based on individual and company performance.
• Participation in company equity program.
• Guaranteed semi-monthly paycheck (24).
• Company-sponsored DashPass.
• 18 days of paid time off.
• 9 paid holidays (5 set days + 4 "floating" holidays).
• Professional development opportunities.
• Medical + HSA, Dental, and Vision coverage through Cigna.
• Up to $9,000 in post-maternity childcare assistance
• 401(k) plan with company match.
• Employee Assistance Program.
• Short-Term Disability, Term-Life/AD&D Insurance, Critical Illness with Cancer Insurance, Accident Insurance, Hospital Confinement Insurance, and Pet Insurance.