The Aspen Group (TAG) is one of the largest and most trusted retail healthcare business support organizations in the U.S. and has supported over 16,000 healthcare professionals and team members at more than 1,200 health and wellness offices across 46 states in four distinct categories: Dental care, urgent care, medical aesthetics, and animal health. Working in partnership with independent practice owners and clinicians, the team is united by a single purpose: to prove that healthcare can be better and smarter for everyone. TAG is backed by top-tier private equity firms and provides a comprehensive suite of centralized business support services that power the impact of five consumer-facing businesses: Aspen Dental, ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers, WellNow Urgent Care, Chapter Aesthetic Studio and our newest addition AZPetVet. Each brand has access to a deep community of experts, tools and resources to grow their practices, and an unwavering commitment to delivering high-quality consumer healthcare experiences at scale.

This Vice President is an important part of the Learning and Development team and has accountability for all of our development strategies and programs at Aspen Dental. This senior leader will partner closely with the SVP, Learning and Development and the Aspen ELT and functional leaders to evolve, build, reimagine and ultimately scale robust solutions across all providers and team members.

This leader plays a key role in modernizing how we develop and grow several key roles at Aspen, including our doctors, owners, Field and PSC teams. They will ensure we deliver high-performance, learner-centric and instructionally sound solutions that enable these team members personally and professionally. They will have a deep understanding of the full journey of these team members to ensure we deliver development continuously at the moments that matter the most throughout their career. This role will develop and drive our strategy and long-range plan for how we meet our learner’s needs today and lead us as we continue to expand into the future with new specialization and lines of business as well as advancements in dentistry and patient care. This leader creates synergies and leverage of our development across roles and teams.

This leader has deep tenure and experience across multiple facets of Learning and Development; and has a strong track record of leading learning organizations. This leader will be responsible for building and leading a team of internal learning professionals to deliver innovative, cutting edge solutions and will also partner frequently with external thought leaders and industry experts to bring the best thinking and practices to Aspen. This role will also require strong collaboration and stakeholder management across several functions including Learning & Development, Talent Management, Clinical Support, Operations, Human Resources, Finance and with senior leaders within the organization.

This leader has experience orchestrating organizationally complex work and demonstrating business impact through data. This leader must also be hands-on with a willingness to analyze and build, and unafraid to roll-up their sleeves to get projects done. This is a fast-paced, rapidly growing organization where career opportunities are plentiful. Our team is one year into an effort to transform learning across the organization; it is an exciting time to join this team.

Essential Responsibilities

• Own and optimize the Aspen Dental brand learning strategy and long-range plan; creating alignment with the broader learning strategy and also team member growth at all phases of their career.
• Partner with the ELT, other senior leaders within the organization, Clinical Support, Field and Operations and the broader L&D, Talent Management and HR teams to understand specific developments needs across our Doctors, Clinical and Non-Clinical roles (at all levels), including clinical + operational skill development, leadership and professional development and business management skills.
• Establish short-term and long-term learning strategy that consider strategic priorities and the current state of our Doctor + Clinical teams, our Field Organization and Scheduling Center team and our current and evolving lines of business and ways of operating.
• Drive a culture of learner centricity, advocating for the needs of the learner through all aspects of the learning lifecycle; incorporating a people-centric perspective and learning expertise into products and solutions.
• Understand the specific needs of each role at Aspen as learners so you can advocate and adapt for their specific needs and preferences.
• Cultivate innovation, while maximizing efficiency by acting as a leader with vision on ground-breaking, scalable, and relevant learning industry trends centered on impact and accessibility.
• Lead the change process as the company meets the challenges of hyper-growth and the need to scale.
• Create alignment and maximize efficiency through frequent and continuous collaboration, planning and advocacy with critical partners and in key processes.
• With oversight of multiple projects and partnerships, establish governance process and protocols, look for synergies, opportunities to simplify and iterate to continuously improve and create consistency/scale.
• Design and develop extraordinary, engaging learning experiences ranging from core/flagship curriculum to discipline-specific programs; ensuring instructional soundness and high performance outcomes in all learning solutions and experiences.
• Enable and enhance our ability to deliver impactful development experiences via integration of modern learning technologies and platforms; removing friction and inefficiency wherever possible.
• On-going organization and analysis of data (learning, people, business) to understand impact, reach, alignment with needs and drive continuous improvement.
• Evaluate existing programs for impact and alignment with organizational needs. Provide recommendations for learning experiences that increase reach, impact, and future capability requirements.
• Maintain world class learning branding across all programs and solutions.
• Ensure high quality work is delivered on time and on budget via strong project management.
• Manage and maintain the Learning and Development budgets for Aspen Dental.
• Serve as a leader of leaders, providing continuous direction, coaching, guidance and support to a team of direct reports (with a variety of accountabilities) and leadership and oversight to the full Aspen L&D team. Approximately 20% of your time is spent as an individual contributor leading complex strategy, design and integration work.
• Develop and maintain a strong pipeline of L&D talent through continuous talent management, development planning, talent assessment + succession planning and performance management.
• Keep pace with both business and functional L&D knowledge, and apply this effectively to optimize learning solutions and improve the learner’s experience.
• Lead and manage key external vendor relationships as necessary.
• Serve as a trusted advisor and internal consultant to senior leaders on matters of clinical and non-clinical development.
• Partner with others to solve business problems and as a member of the Learning and Development leadership team contribute expertise and support beyond Aspen Dental development as needed.

Requirements/Qualifications

• Education Level: Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s Degree preferred.
• A minimum of 15+ years of relevant learning and development experience, ideally in a fast-paced organization with a distributed workforce.
• A minimum of 10+ years leading a team of learning and/or leadership development professionals.
• Advanced understanding of adult learning theory and principles.
• Understanding of DSOs (dentistry service organizations) or similar medical industries desirable. Experience leading learning in this field is preferred.
• Well versed in digital learning, just-in-time / micro-learning, and blended learning strategies
• Proven experience developing and leading learning strategies that delivered high-learner impact and strong business performance.
• Excellent coaching and mentoring skills. Proven experience leading leaders and multi-functional teams.
• Extensive expertise across variety of training methods and advanced instructional design capabilities.
• Extensive understanding of and a variety of experiences with learning technologies; as well as ability to evolve and adjust as trends change and emerge.
• Strong data analytics skills in L&D; and the ability to advocate and influence learning strategies and methods based on data trends.
• Expertise and experience in developing, implementing and monitoring programs/processes that deliver high learner impact and drive business results.
• Exceptional project management skills; on complex and evolving work.
• Strong business insight, with the ability to credibly make a business case, by linking current and anticipated business challenges with learning and development solutions.
• Strong leadership, talent development and talent management skills.
• Strong executive presence, business and commercial acumen and communication skills.
• Excellent influencing skills at all levels in the organization and extreme flexibility to be proactive in a fast paced, ever changing environment.