Description
Work. Serve. Thrive.
Imagine a place where your talent can make a meaningful difference in peoples' lives. Working at Feeding America is a uniquely rewarding experience in which our employees work together as vital parts of a much larger mission. We are innovative, mission-focused, diverse, collaborative, values-driven and focused on results. Feeding America is the nation's largest charity and the leading domestic hunger-relief charity in the United States. Our mission is to feed America's hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and engage our country in the fight to end hunger. Learn more about Feeding America here.
This is ahybrid position based out of Feeding America's Chicago office location. At Feeding America, we believe in offering a flexible work environment. Employees can be in the office an average of 2 days a week (when not travelling for work) and work from home on other days. Employees also have access to a 30-day "work anywhere" program during the course of each calendar year that can be combined with PTO and/or holidays.
The Opportunity
The VP, Innovation role is responsible for the exploration and development of innovative strategies, partnerships, and initiatives that build pathways to the health-related social needs that help our neighbors thrive. Namely, access to nutritious and/or medically tailored foods that result in improved health outcomes and other holistic supports as determined by neighbors through the Network Strategic Framework.
This experienced executive leader has primary accountability for developing transformational relationships with healthcare industry influencers and decision makers in the private/public/non-profit sector to drive systems change that normalizes insurer-funded business models that pay food banks to provide nutritious food tailored to help manage or prevent chronic disease. Success will require effective and efficient collaboration across FANO departments and partnering with network members to create national frameworks and state standards that accommodate local operational needs and neighbor preferences.
Additional core responsibilities include but are not limited to: building strategies to assess and share learnings and take food and health programs to scale across the network and identify technology breakthroughs that will accelerate and scale this work, maximize the network's credibility and share of voice in the Food Is Medicine Space, and manage/coach a highly effective team. Compensation
Here at Feeding America national organization, equality is central to our mission and is an integral part of our compensation policies and structures. As such, we maintain transparent salary ranges and clearly defined practices for how our team, including new hire salary offers, moves through these ranges. You can expect us to offer the best salary up front based on these clearly defined pay practices with little room for negotiation. We make exceptions for highly experienced (multiple years of at-level experience) new hires in accordance with our pay practices. Once hired, employees have the opportunity to progress through salary ranges via regular merit increases and step promotions.
Salary Range: $188,000 - $216,000 Based on Experience.
Benefits:A comprehensive list of benefits available to full-time employees can be found here.
Responsibilities:
Innovation Strategy Development and Portfolio Management
- In partnership with network members, identify areas of greatest opportunity to pursue and apply disruptive innovation to advance our work in the Food is Medicine space.
- In collaboration with Government Relations, Network, and Equity departments, develop a process for monitoring changes in the external environment as well as key trends in the non-profit sector. Leverage these insights to identify innovative opportunities that have the potential to improve our effectiveness in securing payer/provider contracts, increasing awareness that food insecurity is a public health crisis, and strengthening the capacity and efficiency of the national office and network to improve the health of neighbors through nutritious foods and improve their access to social determinants of health.
- Partner with leaders in Supply Chain, Information Technology and other functional leaders to develop a vision and identify strategic opportunities for healthy food sourcing and leveraging technology to accelerate our mission.
- With support from the Research and Evaluation teams, translate research and insights about hunger, poverty and Food is Medicine programs into a comprehensive and diversified portfolio of health innovation opportunities to advance the Food Is Medicine body of knowledge and establish our credibility in the healthcare space.
- Identify key performance indicators for Food Is Medicine (or Ending Hunger) holistic support impacts; assess success based on those metrics.
Communications and Relationship Building
- Articulate and socialize a clear team vision internally and externally.
- Develop and manage relationships and partnerships with public/private/non-profit leaders and influencers that will create new pathways for business models that pay members for delivering medically tailored foods and other nutrition supports (nutrition education, health related social need referrals, etc.)
- In partnership with the Chief Research and Innovation officer and the Marketing and Communications department, develop an externally facing communications campaign that positions our network as the go-to partner for medically tailored food delivery and establish food insecurity as a public health crisis
- Develop and manage relationships with research organizations (American Heart Association, Academia, etc.) working along a shared efficacy research strategy while aligning members around a shared implementation research strategy.
- Develop and manage relationships and partnerships with other Food Is Medicine advocates such asAcademy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Food is Medicine Coalition, Tufts Food is Medicine Institute, Harvard Center for Health Law and Food Policy Innovation, American Heart Association, National Association of Community Health Centers, national and leading health care providers and payors, academic institutions, and national nutrition policy organizations, to align efforts, share best practices, and advance collective impact.
Innovation Capacity, Culture and Coalition Building
- Create and manage an advisory council of internal (network) and external health and food industry experts and design events to infuse fresh and innovative thinking and ideas across the network.
- Lead the development of strategic convenings and ideation sessions with internal, network and external stakeholders for the purpose of cultivating strategic relationships and identifying transformational innovation opportunities and breakthrough ideas to advance our strategic priorities.
- Identify a cadre of internal health innovation champions and experts from across the organization, who can be tapped as needed to support or promote health innovation activities and resource development.
Innovation Delivery, Coaching & Scaling
- Lead cross-functional teams to develop qualified, validated ideas into plans, resources, and learning tools that can be effectively operationalized across our organization, our network, and our partners and attract new sources of funding.
- Guide and coach teams to properly define the challenge or opportunity they are using the innovation process to solve for. Push teams to use their most expansive and non-conventional thinking to generate a broad set of ideas and possibilities.
- Monitor and evaluate innovation happening throughout our network for the dual purpose of sharing promising practices and scaling what works.
- Develop high-impact strategic partnerships to participate in project development and take food and health programs to scale. In partnership with the Chief Development Officer and other Executive Team members, Identify and cultivate relationships with public and private sector organizations for potential funding and partnership opportunities
- Establish performance measures and create and oversee the management of a stage-gate process to evaluate, qualify, manage and develop new ideas, including rapid prototyping and testing of new solutions, where needed.
Required Experience and Qualifications:
- 15 or more years of experience in non-profit or private sector health policy roles at increasing levels of responsibility. This must include specific experience in the Food is Medicine programming space with a demonstrated success standing up a new business units/service model to advance the rigorous programing demanded in this space.
- A strong background in leading program innovation and/or product or solution development including the ability to shape expansive thinking that is also practical and executable, resulting in successful design, testing and launch of health products, services or solutions.
- Experience leveraging technology to advance health innovation and enable implementation of key strategies, with a working knowledge of and experience with social media and digital marketing tools and trends.
- Inherent curiosity, always asking why/why not and what if? Someone who thrives in thinking through gray areas of undefined opportunities with an ability to drive strategic clarity and coach, consult and influence, people out of their comfort zones in order to shape thinking, while maintaining credibility.
- Ability to apply "systems thinking" with experience developing strategic frameworks and roadmaps that outline current state, future state and strategies or transformational initiatives needed to achieve the future state. Experience translating this thinking effectively for donors or customers to successfully generate funding or sales.
- Demonstrated track record creating productive working relationships within a large, complex organizations, federated network or diverse stakeholder groups. Ability to build respect and trust with diverse internal and external stakeholders and lead through influence and collaboration.
- Demonstrated effectiveness in utilizing stage-gate models of innovation management to develop and evaluate ideas at key points in the innovation process.
- A risk taker and visionary thinker, adept at conflict resolution.You will motivate, initiate, and take appropriate risks.
Required Leadership Competencies:
- Fosters an Enterprise Mindset
- Fosters an Open and Supportive Environment
- Leads with Accountability
- Collaborates Internally and Externally
- Focuses on People and Teams
- Manages Organization and Business Complexity
- Communicates with Impact and Influence
Feeding America's goal is to attract, develop, retain, and promote a talented diverse workforce where all employees feel a sense of belonging andcontribute to a culture that values differences, ideas, and experiences. We intentionally seek out diverse perspectives and skills on our teams, knowing that it makes us stronger as an organization and better equipped to serve our neighbors in need. We encourage all individuals, including those from historically under-represented communities and individuals with lived experience of hunger, to apply.
Feeding America participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, this employer is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9.
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Feeding America
remote work
Jul 10, 2025