Director of OE Strategic Operations & Impact

Job Function Summary:

Involves assessing organizational and strategic issues and providing guidance through organizational development solutions such as facilitating assessments, strategic planning, and culture-change and process-oriented approaches to enhance institutional performance. Consults with leaders, departments, and committees to address root causes of organizational effectiveness issues using a systematic approach. Analyzes current organizational purpose, structure, relationships, policies, systems, and data. Recommends and facilitates improvements ensuring alignment with organizational strategy.

Generic Scope

Oversees through subordinate managers a large department or multiple smaller units, OR manages a highly specialized technical function / team. Has significant responsibility to achieve broadly stated goals through subordinate managers. Determines objectives, directs programs, develops strategies and policies, manages human, financial, and physical resources, and functions with a high degree of autonomy. Proactively assesses risk to establish systems and procedures to protect organizational assets. Determines strategies for a program with organization-wide impact.

Custom Scope

The Director of OE Strategic Operations & Impact is a senior leader within Human Resources, reporting to the Vice President of Organizational Effectiveness/Chief Learning Officer. Serving as the VP/CLO's organizational right hand and the strategic operating integrator for Organizational Effectiveness (OE), the Director ensures enterprise priorities are translated into a coherent OE portfolio, disciplined execution, a strong customer experience, and measurable organizational results. The role leads OE strategic operations, including portfolio planning and prioritization, budget and resource governance, leadership operating rhythms, cross-pillar integration, executive decision support, and the mechanisms that drive decisions and commitments to closure. 

A defining responsibility is to strengthen the quality and impact of OE's work across its specialized capability areas. The Director brings an enterprise and customer lens to challenge assumptions, connect work across pillars, clarify intended outcomes, and ensure significant initiatives move beyond design and launch to implementation, adoption, sustained use, and measurable impact. The Director establishes rigorous review and organizational learning practices so OE can demonstrate a clear line of sight from enterprise need to investment, execution, customer experience, and organizational outcome - and use evidence to decide what to improve, scale, sustain, redesign, or stop. 

The Director also provides focused leadership for evolving enterprise priorities that require additional integration, execution discipline, and organizational follow-through. These priorities will change as UCSF's needs evolve. The initial priority is to reimagine and implement Enterprise and Executive Onboarding across UCSF Health and Campus, creating an integrated experience and operating model that accelerates connection, effectiveness, and contribution.

Enterprise strategy defines what UCSF must accomplish; Organizational Effectiveness helps translate those priorities into how leaders, teams, talent systems, and organizations work differently to achieve it. This role builds the strategic operating discipline, integration, execution, and evidence that make that promise real. Alongside the VP/CLO, the Director translates major organizational needs into OE priorities and investment choices, pressure-tests approaches through strong partnerships with HR and business leaders, and creates the operating conditions required for the function to deliver as one integrated team. 

The Director works horizontally across Leadership Development & Learning, Talent Management, Organization Design & Effectiveness, and Future of Work & Leadership Experience Innovation. The role does not replace the expertise or accountability of pillar leaders; it strengthens their work by providing analytical challenge, customer insight, portfolio integration, implementation discipline, and evidence of impact. Success is reflected in a visible and well-prioritized portfolio, disciplined use of budget and capacity, timely decisions and follow-through, coherent customer experiences, enterprise priorities that land and sustain, and credible evidence of OE's contribution to organizational outcomes. 

Department Overview

The Organizational Effectiveness function within Human Resources develops leaders, strengthens organizations, optimizes talent and learning systems, and advances innovative approaches that enable UCSF's people and mission to thrive across UCSF Health and Campus. OE Strategic Operations & Impact provides the integrated operating system for the function: strategy translation, portfolio planning and prioritization, budget and resource governance, cross-pillar integration, executive decision support, review and measurement, customer-oriented challenge, and focused execution leadership for high-priority enterprise work. 

Knowledge, Skills and AbilitiesReq / PrefDemonstrated expertise in strategic operations, enterprise planning, portfolio prioritization, governance, and strategy execution within a large, complex organization. Req Exceptional executive partnership, synthesis, communication, and decision-support skills; able to operate as a trusted thought partner and translate ambiguity into clear choices, recommendations, and action. Req Demonstrated ability to work horizontally across expert functions, constructively challenge senior peers, integrate competing perspectives, and drive follow-through without relying on positional authority or excessive bureaucracy. Req Strong customer orientation; able to use stakeholder insight, experience data, operational evidence, and business outcomes to challenge assumptions and improve enterprise people and organizational solutions. Req Strong financial and operational acumen, including budget planning, resource/capacity visibility, forecasting, business-case development, and investment trade-off analysis. Req Strong measurement literacy and evaluative judgment; able to define meaningful outcomes, distinguish activity from impact, interpret quantitative and qualitative evidence, and partner effectively with analytics experts. Req Experience establishing review and learning mechanisms such as premortems, implementation reviews, retrospectives, or post-implementation reviews and converting evidence into decisions and continuous improvement. Req Demonstrated success leading complex cross-functional enterprise initiatives from strategy through implementation, adoption, integration, and sustained impact. Req Breadth across organizational effectiveness disciplines such as talent, leadership development, learning, organizational development, change, employee experience, or workforce strategy sufficient to integrate work across specialized teams. Req Practical fluency with AI-enabled tools and automation to improve work visibility, synthesis, reporting, coordination, and operational efficiency. Req Demonstrated ability to lead and develop professional staff and establish clear operating standards and accountability. Req 10 or more years of progressive experience spanning strategic operations, strategy execution, enterprise program/portfolio leadership, transformation, organizational effectiveness, HR strategy, Chief-of-Staff work, or related disciplines in a large, complex organization. Req Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional enterprise work and advising senior leaders on priorities, trade-offs, governance, customer needs, measurement, and execution. Req Experience translating enterprise strategy or complex organizational priorities into implementation, adoption, and measurable outcomes. Req Experience designing, governing, or transforming onboarding, executive onboarding, employee lifecycle, or comparable enterprise experiences. Pref Experience in healthcare, academic medicine, higher education, or another complex, highly matrixed enterprise. Pref Bachelor's degree in business, organizational effectiveness/development, strategy, operations, human resources, analytics, healthcare administration, or a related field and/or equivalent experience. Req PMP, PgMP, Prosci, Lean, Agile, program/portfolio management, measurement/evaluation, executive coaching, or related certification.PrefGraduate degree in business, organizational development, organizational psychology, strategy, analytics, public administration, healthcare administration, or a related field. Pref 

 

% 

of time

Essential Function (Yes/No)

  

Key Responsibilities

(To be completed by Supervisor)

25

Yes

OE Strategic Operations, Portfolio & Investment

• Lead the strategic operating system for OE, translating enterprise priorities into a visible, sequenced, and integrated portfolio across OE capability areas. 
• Establish portfolio intake, prioritization criteria, governance, decision rights, milestones, escalation mechanisms, and operating rhythms that enable timely decisions and disciplined follow-through. 
• Lead integrated OE budget, investment, and resource planning; maintain visibility to commitments, forecasts, demand, capacity, and trade-offs in partnership with the VP/CLO and Finance. 
• Develop and challenge business cases for significant investments and recommend work to initiate, sequence, accelerate, pause, scale, redesign, or stop based on strategic value, customer need, evidence, capacity, and enterprise priorities. 
• Surface cross-pillar risks, dependencies, duplication, and opportunities for integration before they impede execution or customer experience. 

20

 

VP/CLO Strategic Partnership & OE Integration

• Serve as the VP/CLO's organizational right hand and senior thought partner, translating strategic direction into coordinated leadership action and anticipating issues, decisions, and opportunities requiring attention. 
• Work horizontally across OE Directors to challenge assumptions, strengthen strategies and proposed solutions, and improve the coherence and customer orientation of the OE portfolio while respecting each leader's functional accountability. 
• Synthesize complex information into executive-ready choices, recommendations, and materials; represent the VP/CLO's strategic intent when appropriate and move priority work forward without requiring direct VP involvement in every decision. 
• Design and lead OE leadership operating rhythms, including direct-report meetings, cross-pillar integration forums, all-hands meetings, and other mechanisms that drive alignment, decisions, accountability, and closure. 

20

 

Impact, Review & Organizational Learning

• Establish and institutionalize OE review practices so significant initiatives begin with a clear customer or organizational problem, intended outcomes, success measures, assumptions, evidence expectations, and implementation risks. 
• Lead premortems, implementation reviews, retrospectives, and post-implementation reviews for priority work; distinguish activity, adoption, experience, behavior change, and organizational impact. 
• Partner with OE leaders, customers, business stakeholders, and analytics partners to interpret quantitative and qualitative evidence and assess whether solutions are landing as intended. 
• Translate evidence into decision-useful conclusions and learning loops that improve future design, investment, prioritization, execution, and decisions to scale, sustain, redesign, or stop work. 
• Strengthen OE's ability to demonstrate a credible line of sight from enterprise need and investment to execution, customer experience, and organizational outcome. 

20

 

Enterprise Priority Execution & Impact

• Provide focused leadership for UCSF's highest-priority organizational initiatives that require additional integration, execution discipline, and organizational follow-through; priorities will evolve with enterprise strategy and business need. 
• Partner with the OE leader or functional expert accountable for solution design to translate strategy and design into an executable enterprise approach with clear outcomes, governance, roles, resources, dependencies, customer requirements, implementation plans, and measures of success. 
• Lead the cross-functional execution required to move priority initiatives from strategy through implementation, adoption, integration, and sustained impact; identify barriers early, mobilize partners, resolve dependencies, and create accountability for results. 
• Initial enterprise priority: lead the strategy, redesign, and implementation of Enterprise and Executive Onboarding across UCSF Health and Campus, creating an integrated experience, operating model, governance structure, and measurement approach that accelerate connection, effectiveness, and contribution. 

15

 

Team Leadership & Operational Capability

• Lead and develop the OE Operations Coordinator and OE Program & Onboarding Coordinator, establishing clear accountability, development priorities, and high operating standards. 
• Ensure OE has reliable operational infrastructure, documentation, budget and vendor practices, work visibility, program coordination, and review support needed to operate with rigor and speed. 
• Build practical use of AI and automation into OE operations to reduce administrative burden and improve visibility, synthesis, reporting, coordination, and execution. 
• Continuously strengthen the team's capabilities and ways of working so OE can scale its impact without unnecessary bureaucracy. 

100%