Senior Director, Central Operations

The Senior Director, Central Operations is an enterprise-level operations leader responsible for leading the Operations Services function and ensuring that major field-facing initiatives, programs, operating standards, and performance management routines are execution-ready, analytically grounded, and sustainable in the field.
This role leads a team responsible for rollout readiness, cross-functional coordination, operational project management, reporting, analytics, and the continued maturation of the Affordable Way. The Senior Director serves as the connective tissue between strategy and field execution—ensuring the organization is focused on the right priorities, decisions are supported by clear facts, initiatives are clinic-ready before launch, and operating changes are embedded into sustainable routines.
The Senior Director partners closely with Field Leadership, Lab, Finance, IT/Data, Marketing, HR, Clinical, Compliance, and Training to ensure enterprise work is properly sequenced, clearly owned, measured, and built to stick.
Note: This role does not own day-to-day clinic operations. It owns the Central Operations Services function, including enterprise operating standards, initiative readiness, execution sustainability, operational reporting, and cross-functional operating cadence.

GENERAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Operations Services Leadership

• Lead the Operations Services team, including direct oversight of director-level and manager-level roles responsible for field readiness, operational project management, executive reporting, analytics, business cases, and enterprise operating routines.
• Establish clear priorities, roles, decision rights, and performance expectations across the Operations Services function.
• Coach and develop team members to operate with high ownership, strong judgment, executive-ready communication, and consistent follow-through.
• Ensure the team is focused on the highest-value operational priorities and not simply responding to ad hoc requests.
• Create a disciplined operating rhythm for the function, including team priorities, project status, escalation paths, decision logs, and measurable outcomes.
• Serve as the senior point of accountability for Central Operations Services work quality, stakeholder alignment, and execution reliability.

Enterprise Initiative Readiness & Rollout Excellence

• Own the enterprise operational readiness process for major corporate initiatives prior to field launch.
• Ensure initiatives are pressure-tested through an operational lens, including clinic workflow impact, staffing feasibility, system readiness, SOP clarity, training needs, reporting, field capacity, and cumulative change load.
• Establish and enforce readiness standards so initiatives are:
• Clearly documented with SOPs, playbooks, and field-facing tools
• Properly sequenced for field execution
• Supported with training, communications, reporting, and escalation paths
• Piloted, refined, and clinic-validated before broad rollout
• Measured for adoption, execution quality, and business impact
• Make go/no-go or delay recommendations to the COO, SVP of Lab & Central Operations, and SVP Field Operations when initiatives are not ready for field deployment.
• Reduce fragmented, rushed, or under-supported rollouts by ensuring clear ownership, practical field design, and disciplined change management.
• Serve as a senior operational gatekeeper and field advocate in enterprise planning forums.

Affordable Way Leadership & Enterprise Operating Standards

• Lead the continued development, maturation, and operationalization of the Affordable Way as a durable enterprise operating model.
• Ensure the Affordable Way translates into clear, practical, and measurable operating expectations for clinics, field leaders, and support teams.
• Oversee the development and maintenance of standardized operating routines, including daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly rhythms.
• Partner with Training, Clinical, Compliance, HR, IT, Lab, and Field Operations to embed Affordable Way standards into SOPs, tools, leader expectations, performance management, and field execution routines.
• Support governance of enterprise operating standards, including documentation, version control, change control, adoption tracking, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure operating standards are practical, field-tested, and designed to improve consistency without eliminating necessary local flexibility.
• Monitor adoption, execution quality, and business impact of Affordable Way routines and standards.

Operational Analytics, Reporting & Insights-to-Action

• Own the Operations Services reporting and insights agenda, ensuring leaders have a clear view of performance, trends, exceptions, root causes, and required actions.
• Direct the development of weekly executive scorecards, Week-in-Review reporting, dashboards, QBR materials, and operational performance readouts.
• Ensure reporting moves beyond data sharing to clear “so what / now what” recommendations.
• Oversee driver-based analysis on operational performance, including revenue growth, margin, scheduling, show rates, capacity, labor, clinic execution, patient experience, and initiative adoption.
• Ensure dashboards and recurring reports are self-serve, reliable, field-relevant, and aligned to one source of truth.
• Partner with IT/Data and Finance to define metrics, improve data quality, pressure-test assumptions, and ensure reporting supports operational decision-making.
• Ensure ad hoc analyses and deep dives are prioritized against business value and converted into action plans with owners, dates, and expected impact.

Strategy, Business Cases & Decision Support

• Lead the team in developing business cases, operating models, and decision briefs for key enterprise initiatives.
• Ensure strategic recommendations are grounded in clear problem statements, operational facts, financial impact, risks, tradeoffs, and implementation requirements.
• Oversee scenario modeling and ROI analysis for staffing changes, channel mix, vendor options, routing, market pilots, centralization opportunities, operating model changes, and major field initiatives.
• Partner with Finance on forecasts, sensitivity analyses, and performance outlooks.
• Translate complex operational topics into concise executive-ready materials that clarify options, decisions needed, owners, timelines, and expected outcomes.
• Ensure leadership discussions are supported by clear facts, practical recommendations, and disciplined follow-through.

Cross-Functional Operational Alignment

• Serve as a senior liaison between Field Operations and corporate functions to ensure enterprise work is aligned to clinic realities and execution capacity.
• Partner with Operations, Lab, Finance, IT, HR, Marketing, Clinical, Compliance, and Training to align workplans, dependencies, owners, timing, and field support requirements.
• Ensure cross-functional partners understand field workflows, operational constraints, change load, and practical execution requirements.
• Facilitate structured operating forums that improve coordination, decision-making, and accountability across functions.
• Protect the field from unnecessary complexity, redundant work, unclear ownership, or poorly sequenced initiatives.
• Translate field feedback into actionable improvements in initiative design, SOPs, reporting, training, and operating routines.
• Maintain strong relationships with SOLs, DFOs, PDSs, LOMs, GMs, clinical leaders, lab leaders, and corporate stakeholders.

Operational Project Management & Execution Cadence

• Oversee operational project management routines for priority Central Operations initiatives.
• Ensure major initiatives have clear charters, milestones, owners, dependencies, decision logs, risks, communications, and success metrics.
• Direct team members responsible for agendas, pre-reads, follow-ups, stakeholder preparation, and project cadence.
• Maintain visibility into key initiatives and escalate risks early when work is off-track, under-resourced, or misaligned.
• Ensure project management is practical and outcome-oriented—not process for process’s sake.
• Drive closure on decisions, action items, and unresolved cross-functional dependencies.

SOPs, Sustainability & Continuous Improvement

• Own the enterprise SOP development roadmap in partnership with operational and functional leaders.
• Prioritize SOP development based on value creation, execution risk, field pain points, patient experience, revenue growth, margin improvement, compliance needs, and scalability.
• Ensure SOPs are field-tested, practical, clear, and embedded into daily operations.
• Build mechanisms to measure whether SOPs and operating standards are adopted and sustained.
• Identify material operational gaps and translate them into clear, sequenced improvement priorities.
• Reinforce a culture of accountability, simplicity, continuous improvement, and disciplined execution.

MEASURES OF SUCCESS

• Strong execution and sustained adoption of enterprise initiatives
• Reduced rework, relaunches, field confusion, and initiative fatigue
• Clearer operating standards and stronger consistency in clinic execution
• Improved quality and usefulness of executive reporting, dashboards, QBRs, and operational insights
• Better prioritization and sequencing of field-facing work
• Stronger cross-functional alignment, ownership, and decision discipline
• Clear business cases and measurable impact from major operational initiatives
• High confidence from field and corporate leaders in the Operations Services function
• Effective development and performance of direct reports

EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS / EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Healthcare Management, Operations, Finance, Analytics, or related field required; advanced degree preferred.
• 7+ years of progressive operations, strategy, analytics, project leadership, or multi-site healthcare/dental operations experience.
• Experience leading teams and influencing senior cross-functional stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to lead enterprise initiatives from strategy through field execution.
• Strong operational and financial acumen, with ability to translate data into practical action.
• Experience with executive reporting, business cases, KPI management, operational dashboards, and performance management routines.
• Experience with dental, healthcare, retail, field operations, or multi-site service environments preferred.
• Familiarity with Dentrix, Power BI, Excel, PowerPoint, and enterprise reporting tools preferred.
• Willingness and ability to travel as required.

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES

• Enterprise operations leadership: able to connect strategy, field execution, operating standards, and measurable business outcomes.
• People leadership: sets clear expectations, develops talent, holds a high bar, and creates accountability without unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Strategic prioritization: distinguishes urgent from important and focuses the team on work that materially improves the business.
• Operational judgment: understands field realities and can identify when an initiative is or is not ready to launch.
• Analytics and decisioning: understands drivers, variance, ROI, sensitivity analysis, and operational performance trends.
• Executive communication: creates clear narratives, concise materials, and decision-ready recommendations.
• Cross-functional influence: can challenge, align, and move senior partners without relying on formal authority.
• Project discipline: ensures priorities have owners, dates, risks, decision points, and follow-through.
• Change management: understands how to sequence work, reduce complexity, and drive sustainable adoption.
• Systems thinking: sees connections across clinic operations, central operations, lab, call center, finance, technology, training, and field leadership.
• Continuous improvement: identifies operational friction and translates it into scalable process improvements.

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

• Strategic, disciplined thinker with a strong execution bias
• High-credibility operator with a field-first mindset
• Direct, respectful, and comfortable having difficult conversations
• Strong coach and developer of talent
• Highly accountable, organized, and calm under pressure
• Bias toward simplicity, clarity, and measurable outcomes
• Strong judgment, integrity, and professionalism
• Able to negotiate, challenge, align, and drive consensus
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity while creating structure for others
• Focused on outcomes over activity