Asheville, NC 28813

Vice President, Impact, Dogwood Health Trust

The Organization

Dogwood Health Trust is a North Carolina nonprofit corporation with the sole purpose of dramatically improving the health and well-being of all people and communities across Western North Carolina. Dogwood Health Trust is the successor foundation of the nonprofit Mission Health System.

Position Overview

WittKieffer is honored to work with Dogwood Health Trust in recruiting a unique executive to join the founding leadership team as Vice President, Impact. DHT, headquartered in Asheville, NC is the biggest United States healthcare conversion foundation on a per capita basis, with $1.5 billion set aside “to dramatically improve the health and well-being of all people and communities of Western North Carolina.” This role reports to Antony Chiang, the groundbreaking former CEO of the Empire Health Foundation in Spokane, Washington, who began as the CEO of Dogwood Health Trust in early November 2019 and is quickly establishing the Foundation as an impactful place and a philanthropic agent for change.

This entrepreneur is someone who loves start-ups, building teams and has a track record of moving the needle, especially someone who is focused on results and is passionate about health equity. The Vice President, Impact will be an instrumental part of the founding team of senior executives, which already includes a Chief Strategy Officer, a Chief Innovation Officer, a Director of Strategy and Policy and a Vice President of Administration. For the next few years, the Foundation will be in continuous “launching” mode. This “tiger team” of seasoned executives will work collaboratively as peers, taking responsibility for two to three strategic initiatives each. The Vice President, Impact will be one of five “Entrepreneurs in Residence” with responsibility to create health equity impact and teams from scratch.

This person will be bold and help select/launch strategic initiatives that could well span the breadth of health care access, housing, education, addiction, mental health, economic development, and so much more. Each initiative will be a multi-prong systems change initiative and the successful candidate will need to demonstrate prior success or aptitude in generating transformational systems change. Several of the initiatives are anticipated to take the form of public-private partnerships (i.e. combination of Dogwood and public funding) and will be subsidiaries with their own senior staff reporting to the executive team of DHT. Each member of the executive team will need to be able to design, hire a brand new team for that initiative, partner with the community, stand up a subsidiary if needed, and move the needle for the agreed upon impact goal.

The new VP, Impact will be an independent leader who understands the balance between leveraging the wisdom and knowledge of peers and a board, while figuring out proactively how to design and implement an entire initiative from scratch. The ideal candidate will have clear evidence of successfully  being held accountable to a result (e.g. launched a new company or new nonprofit; met deadline on a new product or service launch; increased revenue or assets at a for-profit; launched a new non-profit or service; or achieving quantitative impact outcomes and not just number served or process measures).

Candidates must have extensive executive level experience (CEO or other senior leadership role) in a nationally recognized for-profit or non-profit organization or government agency.  The experience could have been gained in any of the following areas: healthcare, public health, education, economic empowerment, workforce development, public safety, technology or business.  They should have a demonstrated track record of exemplary measurable results, growth and sustained financial strength. Strong preference for individuals that have launched a new organization, new division, new product or new service, while and achieving significant measurable outcomes (not just process or output measures).

How To Apply

A full Leadership Profile detailing the opportunity can be found at www.wittkieffer.com. Please direct all nominations and resumes to Julie Rosen and John Fazekas, the WittKieffer Consultants leading this assignment in partnership with the Dogwood Health Trust via e-mail, to: DHTVPImpact@wittkieffer.com or via the secure WittKieffer Candidate Portal here.

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