Associate Vice President, Data Strategy

About the American College of Surgeons

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) is a professional and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients.  The College has more than 90,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit www.facs.org.

Job Summary: 

We are seeking an experienced and visionary Associate Vice President, Data Strategy to lead and oversee the development and advancement of ACS’s data products.  This includes registries which support hospital quality programs for surgical care, as well as Cancer and Trauma patient care.  This role will be responsible for building and managing a high-performing team, driving innovation, and ensuring the delivery of scalable data management and analytics capabilities and platform solutions (e.g., data pipelines, AI/data science products) to meet business objectives. As a strategic leader, you will collaborate with cross-functional teams to enhance data-driven decision-making, enable data-powered innovations, and ensure data quality, governance, and compliance.

This exempt position will report to the Chief Operating and Revenue Officer in the Division of Executive Services. It is based in our Chicago office and is a hybrid role: 3 days per week in the office/2 days per week remote.

The anticipated salary range for this position is $200,000 - $250,000 (commensurate with related experience).

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership & Strategy

• Develop and implement a comprehensive clinical data strategy aligned with organizational goals. 
• Build, lead, and mentor a team of data engineers, data scientists, and analysts to drive innovation and operational excellence.
• Partner with executive leadership to identify opportunities to improve products by leveraging data and data science to solve business challenges and improve decision-making.
• Stay abreast of industry data and data science trends including common clinical data models and data standards, data management approaches, and data science including statistics, AI, and machine learning to recommend and implement appropriate technical approaches. 

Data Platform Development

• Oversee the design and implementation of scalable data architectures, pipelines, and platforms to support analytics and data driven use cases.
• Ensure the development and deployment of FAIR data principles including data models and clinical data standards that address key business needs and deliver measurable value with sustainable practices.
• Ensure seamless data integration, data segmentation, and data access across diverse real world data sources including association management systems (AMS), electronic health records (EHRs), clinical registries, and third-party healthcare databases with robust data management capabilities.

Data Science & AI

• Develop data science and analytic capabilities and services to address key business needs using appropriate delivery (e.g., data visualizations, reports, within workflow) and analytic approaches (e.g., descriptive analytics, statistical benchmarking, predictive modeling, generative AI capabilities, natural language processing and other AI/machine learning).
• Champion the use of appropriate “fit for use” analytic capabilities across teams to enhance business processes and outcomes as a data-driven organization.

Governance & Compliance

• Establish and enforce data governance policies and best practices to ensure data integrity, accuracy, security, and compliance with regulatory requirements.
• Monitor and maintain ethical standards in data development and deployment.
• Ensure the responsible and ethical use of data Technologies across the organization.
• Ensure compliance with HIPAA, GDPR, HITRUST, and other healthcare data regulations governing clinical data and emerging clinical AI regulation.

Collaboration & Communication

• Collaborate with IT, Operations, product, and business teams to define requirements and prioritize data projects.
• Serve as a thought leader, providing guidance and insights on data strategies to stakeholders at all levels.
• Present complex technical concepts and results in a clear