Director, Strategy and Innovation, Player Health & Safety

The National Football League (NFL) is seeking a strategic, analytically driven leader to help shape the future of athlete health, safety, and performance. This is a unique opportunity to apply strategy, technology, data science, and innovation to one of the most complex and visible challenges in sports: reducing injuries and improving player health.  The Director will be responsible for driving strategies to decrease player injuries and enhance the safety of the game, closely collaborating with the NFL Data & Analytics team on technology initiatives. This role will operate at the intersection of data analytics, artificial intelligence, healthcare research, technology product development, and executive decision-making.

At the center of this work is the NFL's groundbreaking Digital Athlete initiative, a first-of-its-kind AI-driven platform developed in partnership with AWS that integrates biomechanical, performance, epidemiological, and injury data to create a comprehensive digital representation of the athlete experience. Additionally, the Director will play a key role in defining future strategic roadmaps for leveraging the wealth of information about sports injuries that is uniquely available in the NFL setting to improve health within and beyond the NFL.

The ideal candidate will be a strategic thinker and transformation leader, able to both oversee day-to-day execution of scientific research and product innovations, as well as synthesize progress and results to make actionable recommendations for senior leadership. This role is ideal for a leader who thrives in highly cross-functional environments, enjoys solving complex problems through data and innovation, and is energized by the opportunity to influence strategy at the highest levels of one of the world’s most recognized sports organizations.

The Player Health & Safety team collaborates closely with other departments across the League to implement research and innovation strategies to reduce injuries and keep players healthy. The Director is joining the NFL at a critically important time when the organization has made unprecedented investments into medical research, biomechanical engineering, epidemiology, and data analytics, all designed to accelerate science and identify new technologies and means of preventing and treating injuries.

Responsibilities:

• Drive Enterprise Strategy
  • Lead the strategic vision, roadmap, and execution of the NFL’s Digital Athlete initiative and related innovation programs.
  • Identify emerging opportunities where technology, analytics, and scientific research can meaningfully improve player health outcomes.
  • Evaluate emerging technologies, vendors, research partnerships, and other opportunities across sports health, AI, healthcare, and performance science.
  • Help shape the League’s multi-year Player Health & Safety innovation agenda.
  • Maintain awareness of global advancements in sports science, healthcare analytics, injury prevention, and applied AI.
• Lead Cross-Functional Transformation
  • Serve as a central integrator across NFL departments (particularly Data & Analytics), engineering and epidemiology consulting teams, and AWS team leads to ensure alignment on strategy, integration, and delivery of tasks and milestones.
  • Align diverse stakeholder groups around strategic priorities, execution plans, and measurable outcomes.
  • Collaborate with vendors and external sources for software, equipment, and analytics research that are involved in injury reduction.
  • Oversee budget and resource allocation.
• Executive Communication & Influence
  • Translate complex analytics findings, research outcomes, and emerging technologies into practical recommendations and implementation plans.
  • Prepare and deliver strategic updates, recommendations, and executive-level presentations to senior NFL leadership.
  • Distill highly technical concepts into clear and compelling narratives for diverse stakeholder groups.
  • Liaise between the NFL League Office and NFL Clubs’ medical, training, and sports science personnel.
  • Triage feedback from Clubs and vendors; provide vendor and internal support to ensure timely response to critical issues.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree strongly preferred
• Minimum 10 years industry relevant experience
• Strong experience leading projects in matrixed organizations, including managing timelines, budgets, and stakeholder alignment
• Advanced analytical and technological acumen with an ability to analyze complex, interconnected problems, map feedback loops and interdependencies, and communicate solutions to cross-functional teams
• Demonstrated excellence in collaborat