Strategy & Operations Lead

Gaia Health; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental & vision

One Medical membership

Generous paid time off

401(k) retirement plan

Pre‑tax commuter benefits

Job summary

Gaia Health in San Francisco is creating a revolutionary hormone therapy platform and seeks an operator to lead cross‑functional work from strategy to delivery. You will partner with the founder/CEO on priorities and drive the critical launch work across pharmacy, operations, and supply chain to bring the product to market.

The role blends strategic planning with hands‑on execution, with growth, fundraising, and go‑to‑market activities expanding as Gaia scales.

Qualifications

• 5–15 years in demanding operating environments (quality over quantity).
• Experience building companies, products, or major initiatives from 0→1.
• Depth across operations, finance, and growth/marketing is highly valued.

Responsibilities

• Drive Gaia’s first commercial launch from plan to execution.
• Build and run critical pieces of pharmacy, operations, and supply chain.
• Develop and execute our go-to-market and growth strategy.

Skills

Operating leadership

0→1 execution

Analytical thinking

Financial judgment

Cross-functional collaboration

Strategic planning

Job description

About Gaia

Gaia’s vision is to fundamentally change our relationship with medicine.

We have created a personalized drug delivery platform that turns the daily chore of taking medication into a monthly ritual. For chronic medications where missed doses can have serious or potentially life‑threatening health implications, Gaia makes taking medication perfectly, simple.

Our platform replaces the mental burden of adherence to give us more time, energy, and attention for what matters. We believe treatment should work not only in the body, but in the context of our lives.

We’re initially targeting hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for perimenopause and menopause to launch our drug delivery platform. Every woman will experience menopause in her life, and more than 80% experience symptoms that damage their physiology, quality of life, and longevity. The treatment is hormone replacement therapy, and the current delivery modes are… subpar. The HRT market is rapidly growing following new FDA guidelines in 2026, and Gaia has partnered with leading OB‑GYNs who have validated that our platform will become the preferred way for women to receive hormone treatment.

We’re assembling our founding team in San Francisco to reimagine how medicine fits into our lives. If you want to build at the intersection of breakthrough science and deep human empathy, come join us.

The Role

We’re looking for a high‑horsepower generalist operator to work closely with our founder and CEO across some of the most important problems in the company.

Your immediate focus will be the successful launch of our hormone therapy offering, with broad ownership across pharmacy buildout, operations and supply chain, fund raising, and the growth and marketing work required to bring the product to market. The scope will evolve as the company does.

This is a role for someone who can take a complex problem off the CEO’s desk entirely, figure out what needs to happen, and drive it to completion at a very high level. The scope will be broad by design. You’ll move between strategy and execution, build new functions as the company grows, and step into whatever matters most.

For the right person, this role has substantial growth opportunity as the company scales.

What You'll Own

• Drive Gaia’s first commercial launch from plan through execution.
• Build and run critical pieces of our pharmacy, operations, and supply chain infrastructure.
• Help develop and execute our go‑to‑market and growth strategy.
• Partner closely with our CEO on company priorities, financial analysis, strategic decisions, and execution.
• Turn ambiguous company priorities into clear plans, decisions, owners, and timelines.
• Use data to understand what is happening, identify what matters, and make better decisions.
• Turn ambiguous goals into clear plans, owners, dependencies, timelines, and decisions.
• Work across product, clinical, pharma/R&D, finance, marketing, and external partners to keep critical work moving.
• Build teams and processes where needed, while staying close enough to the work to execute directly.
• Evaluate when to build internally, hire, outsource, or solve a problem yourself.
• Surface risks early, make hard calls, and keep important work moving.
• Take ownership of important company problems that don't yet have an obvious home.

What You'll Bring

• 5–15 years in demanding operating environments, although we care much more about the quality of your experience than the number of years.
• A track record of building companies, products, operations, or major initiatives from 0→1.
• Genuine depth across multiple parts of a business. Operations, finance, and growth/marketing are an especially useful combination.
• Strong analytical and financial judgment. You use data to understand problems, build execution plans, and make decisions.
• First‑principles thinking. You have enough experience to recognize useful patterns without assuming the playbook from your last company belongs here.
• A bias toward action and an instinct for the most efficient path to done. You move quickly without becoming careless and are exceptionally dependable.
• The confidence to disagree. You can push back, argue for what you believe, change your mind when the evidence warrants it, and commit once a decision is made.
• Low ego and a high learning rate. When something falls outside your experience, you know when to learn it, delegate it, or find someone who knows more than you do.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication and the ability to keep complicated, cross‑functional work organized.
• The ambition to take on increasingly consequential ownership as Gaia grows.

Additional Experience We Value

You don't need to check every box. We're more interested in the combination of experiences and qualities you bring.

• Experience in healthcare, biotech, medical devices, hardware, or another regulated environment where quality matters and mistakes have real consequences.
• Experience across operations, finance, supply chain, manufacturing, product, project management, or growth.
• An engineering or other technical foundation paired with a career that expanded into broader business and operating roles.
• Experience as both an individual contributor and a manager of people and processes.
• Experience building teams and operating infrastructure from the ground up.
• Experience inside an exceptionally well‑run organization, coupled with the judgment to know which lessons are useful in an early‑stage company and which aren't.

Compensation

Gaia is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The annual salary range for this role is $140,000 – $220,000. Compensation is determined based on your qualifications and experience. Our total compensation package also includes generous equity in Gaia.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance with HSA and FSA options
• One Medical membership, 24/7 virtual care, and mental health support
• Generous paid time off, company holidays, and sick time
• Life and Disability Insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Pre‑tax commuter benefits for transit and parking

Building Gaia

Like our products, we are building Gaia by design.

The quality of the company should match the ambition of the science. At this stage, hiring is one of the most consequential forms of company design. Every person who joins Gaia will shape what we build, how we build it, and what it feels like to work here.

We look for people who care deeply about the quality of their work and the people they build alongside. People who move with urgency without lowering the bar, who are ambitious without losing their humanity, and who want their work to matter beyond the next milestone. We want to build a company that can last for hundreds of years and make life better for the generations that follow.

We’re assembling our founding team in San Francisco. The people who join now will help launch our first product in late 2027, prove an entirely new model of care, and define what Gaia becomes.

Compensation Range: $140K - $220K