Associate Director, AI Clinical Decision Support

Overview

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication, and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skill sets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with the majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

Position Overview

Leveraging deep expertise in strengthening healthcare systems, CHAI has launched an ambitious Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiative that responsibly harnesses AI to radically enhance health delivery, improve patient and provider experiences, and achieve significant cost and efficiency gains in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). AI promises a significant leap in diagnostics, treatment optimization, patient engagement, and health systems efficiency. CHAI’s AI initiative seeks to systematically capture and scale these benefits, delivering meaningful, sustainable health impacts at scale.

CHAI is seeking a Sr. Manager or Associate Director to lead its work in clinical decision support and agentic healthcare delivery, reporting to CHAI Global Team Clinical AI Lead. This role holds end-to-end accountability for translating strategy, clinical requirements, and product roadmaps into delivered work on the ground, while building and stewarding the relationships with government, partners, and CHAI’s global and country teams on which the work depends.

This is a holistic systems' role. The successful candidate brings demonstrated, ecosystem-wide understanding of how the components of a health system fit together — demand-side dynamics, referral systems, infrastructure readiness, regulatory pathways, workforce capacity, adjacent service quality — and how to move them in the same direction. They are adept at roadmap development and follow-through, surface concerns and solutions constructively and with robust evidence, and see opportunities and threats before they arise. They have experience acting as requirements translator, dot connector, unblocker, and diplomat, working between and bringing together ministries, AI labs, regulators, clinicians, and implementers in a coherent direction.

Equally, this is a forward-looking role. The successful candidate stays fluent in the frontier of clinical and agentic AI — what is possible today, what is just becoming possible, and where the technology is heading — and uses that fluency to imagine how care delivery in LMICs could work fundamentally differently for patients, not merely incrementally better. They are as willing to challenge default assumptions and champion bold, unproven directions as they are to execute the known roadmap, and they help define what the next generation of AI-enabled care looks like in the settings where CHAI works.

The team is moving quickly to scope, build, validate, and deploy, and the CDS lead is expected to deliver on that pace while also keeping it honest and ensuring high-quality safety guardrails and evidence generation. This work runs alongside government and large institutional partners, where relationship building, listening, and trust are key, and require time and steady engagement. Comfort across both tempos, simultaneously, is essential. A servant-leadership style, team orientation, and the ability to gel with both country and global colleagues are non-negotiable.

This position is remote, with preference for San Francisco or New York City. Position levelling is flexible and commensurate with the successful candidate’s experience; the role may be filled at the Sr. Manager or Associate Director level, depending on tenure and experience. The role requires regular US and international travel (25-40% annually).

Responsibilities

• Lead delivery of CHAI’s AI clinical decision support and agentic healthcare delivery initiatives end-to-end, from early pilots through scale, translating strategy and product roadmaps into sequenced work plans, milestones, accountable owners, and risk mitigation
• Own the program's forward view: track the frontier of clinical and agentic AI, anticipate where capabilities are heading, and reshape the roadmap and partnerships to stay ahead of the field rather than react to it, while pressure-testing new directions against real LMIC constraints, evidence, and safety requirements
• While continuously collaborating and liaising with the CHAI country leadership and departments, forge and maintain relationships with the Ministry of Health, including the digital health, clinical, and other relevant directorates, and coordinate engagement with the broader set of partners contributing to the initiative
• Evaluate how adjacent health system factors — demand generation, referral systems, infrastructure, supply chain, regulatory environment, human resources for health, data infrastructure — affect the initiative’s impact; surface them as they emerge, evidence them with data, and liaise with CHAI’s internal teams and external stakeholders to address them. This role does not own these adjacent programs, but is accountable for seeing them clearly and helping mobilize the wider system response.
• Directly manage at least one Senior Associate / Manager / Sr. Manager; set a servant-leadership tone in which concerns and solutions are surfaced constructively, collaboratively, quickly, and without ego
• Own status reporting and stakeholder communications for senior CHAI leadership and external partners; produce clear written materials and progress narratives
• Anticipate and prepare for scale: regulatory pathways, infrastructure dependencies, workforce readiness, monitoring systems, and the operational shifts required as the initiative expands
• Provide informed technical support to the CHAI country offices, other CHAI global departments, and ministries as needed
• Travel internationally as needed (25-40% annually) and regularly within the US to support partner engagement and pilot activities
• Undertake other responsibilities as needed at the request of CHAI leadership

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; master’s degree in public health, health systems, business administration, computer science, mathematics, or a related field strongly preferred
• Progressively greater responsibility and professional experience in health systems, health technology, or large program leadership, with substantial experience in low- and middle-income country contexts.
• Demonstrated track record of bringing health technologies (preferred AI technologies) from development through to deployment at scale
• Demonstrated holistic understanding of healthcare ecosystems, including the intersections between infrastructure, regulatory requirements, supply chain, human resources, data management, referral pathways, validation studies, etc.
• Forward-looking strategic thinking: stays fluent in the frontier of AI, anticipates where the technology and the field are heading, and has a track record of turning emerging possibilities into ambitious but credible plans, with the judgment to know which bold bets are worth making in safety-critical, resource-constrained settings
• Direct experience working with ministries of health, ideally in roles requiring sustained, trust-based engagement on consequential decisions
• Strong roadmap development and execution skills: ability to take ambitious, ambiguous strategy and turn it into structured, sequenced delivery
• Strategic thinking, with the ability to see opportunities and threats before they arise and to position the program for them
• Strong stakeholder management across government, donors, technical partners, and internal teams
• Servant-leadership style; track record of building teams that surface concerns and solutions constructively, move quickly, and gel with both country and global colleagues
• Strong written and oral communication skills in English, including the ability to produce clear status reports, briefings, and stakeholder communications
• Willingness and ability to travel internationally (25-40% annually) and regularly within the US

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