Healthcare Strategist - Senior

Your Role

The Senior Healthcare Strategist position plays a pivotal role in shaping healthcare strategy for our clients and across the firm, the region, and the office, serving as a trusted advisor to health system leadership and a cross-functional leader within our multidisciplinary teams.

This position is designed for a senior advisor who guides health systems through complex transformation, helping leadership make durable decisions about their clinical future and align organizational strategy with facility investment, operational change, and digital evolution. The ideal candidate brings together capabilities spanning strategic and clinical planning, organizational transformation, operational excellence, Lean process improvement, transition and activation planning, and community health strategy.

What You Will Do

Client Relationship Management & Business Development

• Serve as a client relationship leader for a portfolio of healthcare clients, cultivating trust, expanding scope, and ensuring exceptional delivery outcomes.
• Lead business development efforts including identification of new opportunities, pursuit strategy, proposal development, and client presentations.
• Build and maintain senior-level relationships with C-suite, CNO, CMO, COO, and VP-level healthcare executives at health systems, academic medical centers, and community hospitals.
• Represent the firm at industry conferences, healthcare associations and thought leadership forums.
• Partner with regional practice leaders, design principals, and consulting team members to develop integrated proposals and cross-sell the full continuum of firm services.

Healthcare Strategy & Clinical Advisory Overview

• Lead strategic planning engagements that align health system missions and clinical visions with facility investment strategies and operational road maps.
• Advise clients on emerging care delivery models, including telehealth integration, ambulatory care transformation, behavioral health, and academic health system strategy.
• Conduct best-practice benchmarking, stakeholder engagement facilitation, and clinical co-design to surface insight and build organizational consensus.
• Provide expert guidance on digital health strategy, clinical technology integration, and care model innovation.
• Contribute to firmwide and regional healthcare market analyses and strategic growth planning for the firm's healthcare practice.

Enterprise Strategy & Transformation

• Advise healthcare systems on long-term enterprise transformation strategies aligned with organizational goals, market positioning, growth, and care delivery evolution.
• Collaborate with executive leadership teams to identify strategic opportunities related to access, ambulatory expansion, workforce transformation, consumer experience, and operational performance.
• Support strategic planning initiatives including market assessments, service line growth, network optimization, and capital prioritization.
• Guide alignment between organizational strategy, operational priorities, and capital investment decisions.

Capital & Portfolio Strategy

• Advise clients on capital planning and prioritization across system portfolios, balancing growth, operational performance, and financial stewardship.
• Support facility and portfolio assessments to identify opportunities for repositioning, consolidation, modernization, or expansion.
• Collaborate with project teams to align capital investments with enterprise strategy and measurable business outcomes.
• Provide strategic guidance related to phasing, implementation sequencing, and long-range facility planning.

Operational Planning & Lean Transformation

• Oversee and support operational planning engagements in collaboration with Gensler strategy and project leaders, including workflow design, department-specific optimization, and system-wide performance improvement initiatives.
• Guide the application of Lean methodology and process improvement frameworks to identify and reduce waste, improve capacity, enhance patient throughput, and support quality outcomes.
• Collaborate with clinical leaders, frontline staff, and multidisciplinary Gensler teams to co-develop sustainable operational improvement strategies with measurable ROI.
• Provide strategic advisory oversight and coordinate interim operational support efforts as needed.

Facility Planning & Programming

• Collaborate with Gensler strategy, design, and project teams to translate strategic and operational priorities into facility programs, master plans, and design briefs.
• Oversee functional programming and space planning initiatives for new construction, renovation, and campus transformation projects in partnership with project leadership teams.
• Guide planning efforts to ensure design outcomes align with operational realities, staff workflows, patient experience goals, and future flexibility requirements.
• Advise and coordinate with integrated teams on equipment planning, technology integration, and post-occupancy performance evaluation initiatives.

Transition, Activation & Change Management

• Oversee healthcare facility transition and activation planning for major new builds and phased renovation programs in collaboration with Gensler practice area and project leaders.
• Guide the development of activation frameworks, including operational readiness assessments, staff training programs, command center planning, and move logistics strategies.
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to align stakeholder communication and change management efforts that support organizational adoption of new environments, workflows, and technologies.
• Provide strategic oversight and advisory support for post-occupancy evaluation and continuous improvement initiatives following facility openings.

Smart Building & Digital Environment Consulting

• Advise healthcare clients on smart building strategies, integrating technology infrastructure design with clinical operational goals and occupant experience objectives.
• Collaborate with technology and engineering consultants to define IT, AV, security, and building automation requirements for healthcare facilities.
• Guide clients in designing and integrating digital ecosystems that support future-ready operations, staff efficiency, and patient engagement.

Healthcare Practice Leadership

• Serve as a senior ambassador for the firm's healthcare practice within the assigned region and office, mentoring junior consultants and contributing to talent development.
• Collaborate across practice lines, design, engineering, consulting, and technology, to deliver integrated, multidisciplinary solutions.
• Contribute to the development of tools, methodologies, playbooks, and thought leadership content that advance the firm's healthcare consulting capabilities.
• Participate in firmwide healthcare strategy discussions and support alignment of regional practice with national healthcare priorities.

Your Qualifications

• 20+ years of relevant healthcare design strategy experience.
• Master's degree in Architecture or a closely related field.
• Strategic Thinking: Ability to synthesize complex healthcare trends and translate them into actionable strategies for diverse client organizations.
• Client Partnership: Demonstrated skill in building trust, navigating ambiguity, and maintaining long-term advisory relationships with senior healthcare leaders.
• Integrative Collaboration: Capacity to work across consulting, design, technology, and operations disciplines to deliver unified, high-impact solutions.
• Facilitation & Influence: Skilled at engaging clinical, operational, and executive stakeholders; comfort leading large group workshops and decision-making processes.
• Analytical Rigor: Ability to use data, benchmarks, and evidence to support recommendations and demonstrate measurable client outcomes.
• Entrepreneurial Drive: Proactive in identifying and developing new business opportunities, comfortable with revenue responsibility.
• Systems Thinking: Capacity to connect building design, urban context, clinical operations, and digital infrastructure as interconnected systems.

Life at Gensler

At Gensler, we are as committed to enjoying life as we are to delivering best-in-class design. From curated art exhibits to internal design competitions to "Well-being Week," our offices reflect our people's diverse interests.

We encourage every person at Gensler to lead a healthy and balanced life. Our comprehensive benefits include medical, dental, vision, disability, wellness programs, flex spending, paid holidays, and paid time off. We also offer a 401k, profit sharing, employee stock ownership, and twice annual bonus opportunities.Our annual base salary range has been established based on local markets.

As part of the firm's commitment to licensure and professional development, Gensler offers reimbursement for certain professional licenses and associated renewals and exam fees. In addition, we reimburse tuition for certain eligible programs or classes. We view our professional development programs as strategic investments in our future.

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