The American Diabetes Association is seeking a Senior Director, Health Access Strategic Alliances to join the Health Access and Quality Improvement team. The Senior Director leads the development, recruitment, cultivation, and management of strategic relationships that advance the organization's mission, visibility, impact, and growth. The role oversees partnerships with national and regional organizations, civic and community institutions, professional associations, corporations, social impact organizations, funders, and other key stakeholders. The Senior Director serves as a senior organizational ambassador, supporting and in collaboration with the Managing Director, developing mutually beneficial partnerships and ensuring agreements, events, and engagement activities, advance organizational priorities, funder commitments, ADA Standards of Care, and advocacy objectives.
Responsibilities
Strategic Partnerships & Relationship Management
- Develop and execute a strategic partnership plan aligned with organizational priorities and growth objectives.
- Identify, recruit, cultivate, and steward national, regional, civic, social, professional, corporate, community, and philanthropic partners.
- Build and manage a portfolio of high-value relationships, strengthening engagement, retention, and opportunities for expanded collaboration.
- Represent the organization with senior leaders, community stakeholders, professional organizations, funders, and other external partners.
- Identify cross-sector opportunities that expand reach, resources, influence, and mission impact.
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Project & Deliverables Management
- Lead the development, negotiation, execution, and management of MOUs and partnership agreements.
- Establish clear goals, deliverables, timelines, milestones, and accountability measures for partnerships and initiatives.
- Manage multiple concurrent relationships, projects, events, and deliverables with strong organization and attention to detail.
- Develop and maintain dashboards, tracking tools, calendars, and reporting systems to monitor partner activity, commitments, deadlines, outcomes, and follow-up.
- Coordinate across internal teams to ensure timely completion of partnership and funder commitments.
- Evaluate partnership performance and recommend opportunities for renewal, expansion, or improvement.
Events & Strategic Engagement
- Develop and manage partner events, convenings, forums, educational programs, and stakeholder engagements.
- Align events and external engagement with funder deliverables, organizational initiatives, ADA Standards of Care, and advocacy priorities.
- Manage event timelines, logistics, partner responsibilities, deliverables, and follow-up.
- Use post-event evaluation and reporting to measure outcomes and strengthen ongoing relationships.
Cross-Functional Leadership
- Collaborate with executive leadership and teams across development, programs, advocacy, communications, and operations to maximize partnership impact.
- Provide leadership with dashboards, updates, and recommendations regarding partnership activity, performance, opportunities, and risks.
- Establish efficient processes for partnership intake, activation, tracking, communication, and evaluation.
Clinical Trials Awareness & Education
- Knowledge of and exposure to initiatives focused on raising awareness and increasing understanding of clinical trials, particularly among patients, caregivers, community stakeholders, and underrepresented groups.
- Experience supporting or contributing to educational programs, workshops, forums, and stakeholder engagements designed to strengthen clinical-trial literacy and understanding.
- Familiarity with partnering across clinical, community, advocacy, and professional organizations to educate stakeholders and promote awareness of clinical-trial opportunities and the importance of representation in clinical research.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Communications/Public Relations, Nonprofit Management/Public Administration, or a related field; advanced degree preferred.
- Minimum of 8 years of experience in strategic partnerships, external affairs, business development, community engagement, healthcare, nonprofit leadership, or a related field.
- Demonstrated success recruiting, cultivating, and managing complex external relationships and multiple concurrent initiatives.
- Exceptional relationship management, communication, negotiation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
- Strong project management, organizational, and prioritization skills, with the ability to manage a large portfolio of relationships, events, agreements, and deadlines.
- Experience developing and managing MOUs, partnership agreements, deliverables, and project timelines.
- Proficiency with dashboards, CRM systems, project management tools, calendars, and other tracking systems to manage relationship activity and accountability.
- Strong attention to detail and ability to establish systems that ensure commitments are documented, tracked, and completed.
- Experience planning and managing strategic events and external engagements.
- Executive presence, sound judgment, diplomacy, and ability to influence across organizational boundaries.
- Experience with healthcare, advocacy, public health, nonprofit, or mission-driven organizations preferred.
- Familiarity with ADA Standards of Care, advocacy priorities, and/or funder preferred requirements.
- Travel: Approximately 25%, including travel to national and regional partner meetings, conferences, events, stakeholder engagements, and other activities that support strategic relationship development and organizational priorities.
Why Work Here
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) offers a rewarding career working for one of the premier voluntary health organizations in the world supporting people living with diabetes and/or obesity. Our employees consistently say that our mission, culture, work-life balance, and total rewards package are what they like most about working at the ADA. benefits and our culture:
- Industry competitive base pay. Base offers are determined by several factors including but not limited to your relevant work experience, education, certifications, location, internal pay equity, etc.
- A culture of recognition including new hire welcome announcements, service anniversary awards, referral bonuses, monthly All Employee Assembly, appreciation awards
- Generous Paid Time Off, including holidays, vacation days, personal days and sick days
- Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), disability & life insurance, pet insurance, and retirement savings
- Guided by our mission, we provide full diabetes supply coverage through our medical benefits program
- A company focus on offering mental health programs and work/life balance with most of our employees working remote
- Joining our dedicated team affords the gratification of knowing beyond a doubt that you will impact the lives and well-being of millions
About the Organization
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is the nation's leading voluntary health organization fighting to end diabetes and helping people living with diabetes thrive. Since 1940, we have driven discovery and research to prevent, manage, treat, and ultimately cure diabetes. We advocate for policy changes and improved access to quality care for all people living with diabetes and/or obesity. Through the Obesity Association, a division of the ADA, we are also working to reduce the prevalence of obesity-a leading risk factor for type 2 diabetes.