The Role
Lead statewide expansion strategy and execution: build launch playbook, recruit clinical teams, ensure regulatory and payer readiness, form local partnerships, monitor launch KPIs, and define data-driven future expansion criteria.
Summary Generated by Built In
In the United States, one in five adults experience a mental health illness and over 12 million people have thoughts of suicide. Mental health crises can be some of the most difficult times in a person’s life, and over 17 million people seeking behavioral health care experience a delay in accessing care. Willow Health is on a mission to significantly improve this experience by expanding affordable access to high-quality, evidence-based intensive behavioral health care. In order to make this mission a reality, we deliver a virtual, urgent crisis care program that provides personalized, recovery-oriented care for people experiencing behavioral health crises.
Willow Health offers patients immediate access to evidence-based virtual crisis psychotherapy, medication management, certified peer coaching, care management, and around the clock crisis coverage, while working to connect patients to the most appropriate next level of care. We’re backed by leading venture firms, including Andreessen Horowitz and Seae Ventures.
Your Role
As the Head of State Expansion, you will lead the end-to-end strategy and execution for our interstate growth. You’ll be responsible for building local teams, navigating complex healthcare regulations, and embedding our services into the fabric of local communities.
Key Responsibilities
- Market Launch & Clinical Hiring: Build a repeatable "Launch Playbook." You will lead the charge in recruiting and onboarding high-caliber clinical leadership and staff in each new territory.
- Regulatory & Compliance Sovereignty: Ensure 100% alignment with local state boards, licensing requirements, and healthcare mandates. You’ll be the primary point of contact for regulatory readiness.
- Payer Strategy: Drive early-stage KPIs focused on % of the population covered by insurance. You will work to ensure our services are accessible and that we are credentialed with the major payers in each new market.
- Community Ecosystem Building: Establish deep-rooted partnerships with local hospitals, emergency services, and 988 crisis centers, and build teams to manage ongoing relationship management.
- Operational Scaling: Monitor performance against early-stage KPIs (access, quality, and unit economics) to ensure a successful launch before transitioning the market to long-term operations.
- Future Roadmap: Develop the data-driven criteria for our next phase of expansion, identifying the states where we can have the greatest impact.
Who You Are
- Scaler: You have 10+ years of experience, specifically within high-growth startups. You’ve seen scale and know how to build systems that adapt to growth.
- Healthcare Native: You understand the nuances of clinical operations and what is unique about being a new Medicaid healthcare provider. This includes ideally having existing relationships with Payers.
- Operator-Entrepreneur: You are comfortable being a "department of one" on day one, but have the leadership gravitas to manage a large, decentralized team by day 100.
- Relentless, Organized Executor: You have a proven track record of hitting aggressive deadlines across multiple workstreams simultaneously. You are highly organized, detail oriented, and able to bring together multiple moving parts to ensure timely delivery against goals.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in value-based care or behavioral health.
- Previous "boots on the ground" experience launching physical or hybrid clinical sites.
- Strong analytical background; you use data to decide which market to enter and how to measure success once there.
Willow is an equal opportunity employer, indiscriminate of race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic.
Skills Required
- 10+ years experience scaling high-growth startups
- Proven experience leading market launches and building repeatable launch playbooks
- Deep knowledge of state healthcare regulations, licensing, and Medicaid provider requirements
- Experience driving payer strategy and securing credentialing with major payers
- Ability to recruit, onboard, and lead clinical leadership and staff
- Comfort operating as a department of one initially and scaling to lead decentralized teams
- Proven track record of meeting aggressive deadlines across multiple workstreams (highly organized executor)
- Existing relationships with payers
- Experience in value-based care or behavioral health
- Previous boots-on-the-ground experience launching physical or hybrid clinical sites
- Strong analytical background; uses data to inform market selection and KPIs
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The Company
What We Do
Willow Health is a boutique third-party administrator (TPA) that helps mid-sized businesses build and run affordable, custom, employer-funded health benefits plans. Based in Fife, Washington, the company focuses on reducing healthcare costs through self-funded plans and reference-based pricing, providing a high-touch, local customer experience for employees while ensuring full federal regulatory compliance and managing plan costs effectively.
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