Associate Director, Client Strategy and Service – Patient Activation

Role Purpose

The Associate Director, Client Strategy and Service is the strategic and operational bridge between senior client leadership and day-to-day account execution within the Patient Activation team. You are responsible for ensuring that the overall client strategy set by the Director, Client Strategy and Service and above, and agreed upon by the client, is translated into a clear, well-sequenced execution plan and delivered on time, on budget, and on brief across your assigned portfolio of health system clients, with individual scopes ranging from $200k to $350k annually and a total portfolio spanning 4 to 8 active scopes across your accounts. Accountability for this function includes client strategy and long-term account planning, client satisfaction and strategic partnership, annual client retention and account growth, three-year client value realization and ROI, and ongoing program performance and performance fee achievement.

While the Director, Client Strategy and Service and above owns the overall client relationship, retention, and long-term strategy, the Associate Director owns day-to-day client communications and coordination while monitoring execution progress across campaigns, developing data-driven patient activation plans and serving as the senior voice in the room when the SVP is not present. You are equally comfortable analyzing patient data to sharpen campaign targeting as you are running a client strategy session or managing a difficult client moment.

Where no Manager, Client Strategy and Service is assigned to your client(s), you are adept at stepping into that function directly, managing meeting scheduling and agendas, capturing notes, and assigning and tracking action steps.

Key Responsibilities

Client Relationship Management

• Serve as the senior client relationship manager on assigned accounts when the Director, Client Strategy and Service is not present, building trusted partnerships with health system clinical, operational and marketing contacts through consistent communication, sound strategic counsel, and reliable delivery.
• Lead or co-lead QBRs, strategy sessions, and campaign briefing presentations, preparing materials in partnership with Managers, Client Strategy and Service and presenting with confidence and clarity.
• Proactively identify and address client satisfaction risks; surface relationship concerns to the Director, Client Strategy and Service with recommended actions.
• Communicate campaign strategy, performance results, and optimization plans to clients in a way that builds confidence and demonstrates measurable progress toward their clinical and marketing goals.

Execution Strategy & SOW Delivery Oversight

• Own the translation of the Director, Client Strategy, and Service’s engagement strategy into detailed, sequenced campaign execution plans with clear milestones, dependencies, and accountability across internal teams.
• Monitor execution progress across all active campaigns and workstreams for assigned accounts, identifying schedule risks, resource gaps, or quality issues before they reach the client.
• Ensure all deliverables are aligned with active SOW scope; proactively flag and manage scope creep in partnership with the Director, Client Strategy and Service.
• Serve as the senior day-to-day point of escalation for Managers and Senior Managers, Client Strategy and Service on execution-related issues, providing guidance and resolving blockers to keep campaigns on track.
• Lead internal campaign kick-offs and execution readiness reviews to ensure all teams (Content, Activation & Operations, Deployment, Data, and Technology) are aligned before launch.

Data-Driven Campaign Strategy

• Develop campaign-level strategy for patient activation and clinical marketing programs, grounded in patient data, audience segmentation analysis, historical performance, and healthcare marketing best practices.
• Partner with Data and Analytics teams to interpret patient insights, predictive model outputs, and performance trends; translate findings into actionable targeting, messaging, and channel strategy recommendations.
• Define and document campaign objectives, audience parameters, segmentation logic, messaging frameworks, and success metrics for each program prior to activation.
• Continuously evaluate campaign performance against stated objectives; develop and present optimization recommendations to the Director, Client Strategy and Service and client.
• Maintain a campaign strategy calendar for assigned accounts, ensuring programs are planned, sequenced, and resourced sufficiently in advance of execution.

Team Leadership

• Directly manage and mentor assigned Managers and Senior Managers, providing day-to-day guidance, regular feedback, and ongoing coaching to develop their client management and strategic thinking skills.
• Review and approve client-facing materials prepared by your team, including presentations, reports, and meeting pre-reads before delivery, ensuring quality and strategic alignment.
• Set clear expectations for performance, workload, and professional development; conduct regular 1:1s and support annual review processes.
• Model strong client communication and strategic problem-solving practices for the Managers and Senior Managers of the Client Strategy and Service team.

Cross-Functional Coordination & Activation Alignment

• Serve as the primary internal coordinator for assigned accounts, orchestrating the contributions of Data, Content, Creative, Activation & Operations, Deployment, and Technology teams against campaign plans and timelines.
• Brief internal teams with sufficient context, lead time, and clarity to enable high-quality, on-time delivery; hold teams accountable to agreed timelines and escalate where needed.
• Participate in regular check-ins with assigned Managers and Senior Managers, and Managers from the Activation & Operations team to assess delivery status across active scopes, identifying what is on track, what is at risk, and where schedule or resourcing adjustments are needed. When the Client Strategy and Services team and Activation & Operations team cannot resolve a timeline conflict bilaterally, serve as the escalation point: the goal is always to protect client-approved deadlines by finding capacity solutions within the Activation & Operations team’s portfolio rather than moving client-facing dates.
• Surface cross-functional coordination issues or recurring process gaps to the Director, Client Strategy and Service with recommended improvements.

Performance Reporting & Strategic Insights

• Oversee the preparation of performance reports and campaign results summaries for assigned accounts, ensuring accuracy, clarity, and strategic framing before client delivery.
• Analyze campaign data and report outputs across assigned accounts to identify performance trends, optimization opportunities, and strategic implications beyond the immediate campaign cycle.
• Present performance findings and strategic recommendations to clients with confidence, anchoring recommendations in data and connecting them clearly to client clinical and marketing goals.
• Contribute account-level learnings and case studies to the Director, Client Strategy and Service and broader team knowledge-sharing efforts.

About You

Experience & Education

• 5-7 years of experience in strategic account management, consulting, client engagement or agency environments, with a track record of independently owning client relationships. Patient engagement or healthcare experience is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience developing and managing patient activation or clinical marketing campaign strategy, including audience segmentation, messaging frameworks, and performance optimization.
• Proven ability to manage client relationships at a senior level, with a track record of building trust, navigating difficult conversations, and delivering consistently against commitments.
• Experience managing or mentoring junior team members, with a genuine interest in developing others.
• Experience in healthcare marketing, patient activation, or direct response marketing is strongly preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree a plus.

Technical Skills

• Strong analytical skills with hands-on experience interpreting patient data, campaign performance metrics, and data model outputs to inform strategy.
• Proficiency with project management platforms (Asana, Monday.com, or similar) and comfort with data visualization or reporting tools.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to prepare and present polished, compelling client materials independently.

Professional Attributes

• Strategic and operational in equal measure. You can develop a campaign segmentation framework in the morning and run a client escalation call in the afternoon.
• A confident client presence. You can hold the room on your own and represent the account with authority when senior leadership is not there.
• Invested in developing others. You give Managers and Senior Managers of the Client Strategy and Service team real feedback and genuinely care whether they get better.
• Proactive about problems. You surface risks and concerns with context and a recommended path forward, not as open-ended questions.
• Data-literate. You know how to read what the numbers are telling you and translate that into recommendations clients can act on.