Vice President, Product & Program Strategy
Senior Living & Long Term Care | Dining and Environmental Services
Full time, exempt Hybrid or remote with regular travel to client communities
A CONFIDENTIAL OPPORTUNITY
A well established, multi site managed services company providing foodservice and environmental services to senior living and long term care communities is conducting a confidential search for a Vice President, Product & Program Strategy. This is a newly created leadership role reporting directly to the President and CEO. You would join an organization with a growing multi state footprint and an executive team committed to investing in long term differentiation rather than incremental change. The organization's identity and additional detail will be shared with candidates as the search advances.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Our category is competitive, and the companies that win the next decade will be the ones that move beyond labor and cost management to become genuine product and experience partners to their clients. This role exists to build that advantage. You will create and lead the company's product and program organization, an internal team with its own brand identity, and build the intellectual property that becomes the foundation of the company's long term competitive advantage.
You are here to build far more than menus. You will create proprietary programs, methodologies, premium service tiers, training systems, playbooks, and resident experiences that become the company's intellectual property and competitive advantage.
This is a builder's role with a high degree of independence. You will develop programs from the ground up, generate the ideas that differentiate the company, and continuously evolve the model as the market changes. You will have executive sponsorship, access to operational experts, and the resources needed to build programs that become permanent differentiators. You will not run day to day field operations. Instead, you will design the standardized base offering every client receives, build and price the premium tiers sold above it, and partner closely with operations leadership to make sure everything you design is executable, faithfully delivered, and measurably effective. Every program you build will be measured through operational, clinical, financial, and resident outcomes.
Your work will shape operations, sales, marketing, culinary, clinical, finance, and executive strategy. This is an enterprise wide mandate, not a single function.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
- Build and lead the company's product and program organization, including its brand, mandate, and roadmap.
- Create the proprietary programs, methodologies, training, and playbooks that become the company's owned intellectual property.
- Design a productized portfolio: a standardized base offering for every client, plus premium, pre priced service tiers.
- Anchor products in clinical nutrition and culinary innovation, including menus, formularies, therapeutic and personalized menu design, fortified and snack programs, and resident engagement initiatives.
- Define the staffing and operating models each tier requires, including specialized culinary and hospitality roles.
- Operate independently to generate original ideas and continuously improve programs against field results and client feedback.
- Partner with the Chief Operating Officer to ensure operational fidelity, rollout, and a structured field feedback loop.
- Build an outcomes dashboard that demonstrates product impact across resident, clinical, commercial, and operational measures.
- Equip the sales team with productized offerings, pricing, and talk tracks that shorten sales cycles and lift average selling price.
- Manage the program budget, build the business case, and keep the value of the function visible to leadership.
- Influence operations, sales, marketing, culinary, clinical, finance, and executive strategy as the company's product engine.
WHAT YOU WILL BRING
- Bachelor's degree required in nutrition, dietetics, culinary arts, hospitality, business, or a related field; advanced degree preferred.
- Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN) credential strongly preferred, or equivalent clinical nutrition or culinary leadership credentials.
- Seven or more years of progressive leadership in senior living or long term care foodservice, clinical nutrition, culinary program development, hospitality, or managed services.
- Demonstrated success building and pricing programs, products, or service offerings, ideally in a regulated healthcare or senior living environment.
- A self directed, entrepreneurial operator who can develop programs independently and drive ideas from concept to launch with minimal direction.
- Working understanding of senior living EMR and EHR systems such as PointClickCare (PCC).
- Strong financial fluency in costing, pricing, and budget management, with executive level communication and a confident client facing presence.
WHY THIS ROLE IS DIFFERENT
This is a rare greenfield mandate. You will not inherit a function and maintain it. You will lead the creation of the company’s intellectual property and help define its long-term competitive advantage. You will have the autonomy to design, an established operations team to execute through, the resources to do it well, and direct visibility to the CEO. Few roles in this industry let a single leader define the product, the brand, and the long term competitive advantage of the company at once. Success in this role means building a repeatable platform that can scale across hundreds of communities.
COMPENSATION
Competitive executive compensation commensurate with experience, plus benefits. Specifics will be discussed confidentially with qualified candidates.
TO APPLY, IN CONFIDENCE
If you have spent your career being asked to innovate between operational emergencies, and you have always believed healthcare dining could become a true differentiator, we would like to talk.
Submit a confidential resume and a brief note on why this role fits. All inquiries will be handled with discretion, and the hiring organization's identity will be disclosed to candidates as the process advances.
The hiring organization is an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Employee assistance program
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Tuition reimbursement
- Vision insurance
Experience:
- Leadership in nutrition or hospitality: 7 years (Required)
Work Location: In person
