Chief Strategy and Operations Officer

University of Chicago; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 250,000 - 450,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Chicago is seeking a strategic and operational executive leader to guide the AI, Precision Medicine, and Data Analytics office across the Biological Sciences Division and UChicago Medicine.

This role oversees a multi-year enterprise strategy unifying clinical informatics, research informatics, omics, AI, and precision medicine, directing resources, governance, and large-scale infrastructure growth.

Responsibilities

• Lead the coordination, consolidation, and operationalization of UChicago's distributed informatics, AI, and precision medicine capabilities into a unified enterprise structure.
• Manage consolidated budgets, personnel strategies, and enterprise‑wide funding allocations to support core strategic priorities across the biomedical enterprise.
• Support consolidated budgets, personnel strategies, and enterprise‑wide funding allocations to support core strategic priorities across the biomedical enterprise.

Job description

BSD MED - General Internal Medicine

About the Department

The newly established office of AI, Precision Medicine, and Data Analytics brings together academic research and clinical operational leadership across the Biological Sciences Division (BSD) and UChicago Medicine (UCMC). This office serves as a unified authority over clinical informatics, research informatics, omics, AI, and precision medicine. Our mission is to bridge discovery and operations to position UChicago Medicine as a national leader in clinical-first, AI-powered precision medicine. By consolidating distributed informatics capabilities, translational data science initiatives, and institutional biobanking, this enterprise unifies personnel, operations, and strategic investments to drive preeminence and scalable growth. The department is actively building a world-class team of faculty, researchers, and operational experts across clinical and computational phenomics, informatics, and AI to support enterprise organization & governance, develop a unified data platform, make usable real‑world data for research and to enhance clinical outcomes, and to develop external data partnerships.

Job Summary

This role serves as the strategic and operational executive leader partnering directly with the Vice Dean and Senior Vice President for AI, Precision Medicine, and Data Analytics. Operating across both the Biological Sciences Division (BSD) and UChicago Medicine (UCMC), the position oversees the execution of a multi‑year enterprise strategy to unify clinical informatics, research informatics, omics, AI, and precision medicine. The role bridges academic research and clinical operations, directing resource allocation, cross‑functional governance, large‑scale infrastructural growth, and institutional partnerships, including integration with external and university institutions such as Argonne National Labs, Booth, and Polsky.

The role will ensure the development and execution of research initiatives, scientific programs and event planning, funding opportunities and grants, external partnerships, and donor‑facing activities in coordination with faculty and University leadership. The role supports the recruitment and hiring of talent to develop the organizational capacity to execute at scale including overseeing a multi‑year investment plan and supervising staff, and serves as a senior problem‑solver and primary point of contact for internal and external constituencies. This position demands visionary leadership, sophisticated stakeholder influence, and the ability to translate scientific opportunity into institutional and industry impact.

Responsibilities

• Lead the coordination, consolidation, and operationalization of UChicago's distributed informatics, AI, and precision medicine capabilities into a unified enterprise structure.
• Manage consolidated budgets, personnel strategies, and enterprise‑wide funding allocations to support core strategic priorities across the biomedical enterprise.
• Support consolidated budgets, personnel strategies, and enterprise‑wide funding allocations to support core strategic priorities across the biomedical enterprise.
• Support the development of a democratized clinical‑research data platform integrating the electronic health record (EHR), multiomics, imaging, digital pathology, and participant‑mediated data in close partnership with UCMC IT and leadership.
• Support the integration of real‑time and participant‑mediated data including wearables, remote monitoring, patient‑reported outcomes, and sociomic data elements into the core platform architecture.
• Help direct and establish adoption of the strategy, scaling, and execution of precision medicine efforts, including from research to clinical implementation and translation efforts.
• Conduct internal and community engagement, managing internal and external advisory boards to position UChicago as a national leader in clinical biobanking.
• Drive internal collaboration across university powerhouses, including Argonne National Labs, the Harris School of Public Policy, the Booth School of Business, the Physical Sciences Division, the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, and the Polsky Center.
• Cultivate and manage external affiliate partnerships, including UChicago Medicine AdventHealth collaborative hospitals, regional health systems, and industry leaders in sequencing, proteomics, digital pathology, AI, and multimodal analytics.
• Partner with academic and clinical leadership to execute division‑wide strategic faculty searches in areas such as artificial intelligence in biomedicine, clinical/computational phenomics, and pharmacogenomics.
• Oversee the strategic deployment of multi‑year enterprise investment plans and start‑up packages to build a world‑class team of researchers, clinician‑scientists, and operational experts.
• Partner with University Development to drive philanthropic engagement, external grant opportunities and writing, industry co‑investments, and commercialization strategies to ensure long‑term financial sustainability.
• Oversee day‑to‑day department operations, directly supervise staff, and establish organizational capa