Payer Partnerships Lead, Strategy & Operations

Headway’s mission is to revolutionize mental healthcare access by addressing the critical barrier of insurance. Currently, 1 in 4 people in the US have a treatable mental health condition, but most providers lack insurance acceptance, making therapy unaffordable for many. Headway automates the administrative nightmare of credentialing, claims, and payment reconciliation to solve this issue.

Beyond automation, Headway is scaling its impact by empowering 75,000+ providers across all 50 states to serve over 1 million patients. The company is building comprehensive tools for therapists to manage their practices, reimagining the therapist discovery experience, and investing in scalable platform foundations to ensure care delivery at scale. Headway is not just a billing solution; it is becoming the platform where mental healthcare actually happens.

As a Series D company with $325M+ in funding (backed by investors like a16z, Accel, and Spark Capital), Headway is seeking exceptional talent to help achieve its mission. The company emphasizes meaningful career experiences and invites you to join in changing mental healthcare for the better.

About The Role

As the Payer Partnerships Lead, Strategy & Operations, you will drive continued growth with strategic partners in 2025 and beyond. This role involves collaborating cross-functionally with internal teams (Strategy, Product, Operations) to ensure ongoing success in health plan partnerships. You will also deepen external payer relationships to identify new product opportunities and align partnerships for maximum impact. This is an opportunity to own high-impact objectives at a rapidly scaling, mission-driven company.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage long-term health plan partnerships with some of the largest health plans in the US.
• Navigate contract strategy and renegotiations to optimize partnership structures and success.
• Build and grow relationships with health plan teams and leadership across multiple functions, including Network, Sales/Commercial, and Product.
• Lead market analysis and healthcare research to shape strategy.
• Leverage data to generate insights and identify new opportunities for partnership growth.
• Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to deliver insights that inform product and operations strategy.

Qualifications and Fit:

• Minimum of 5+ years of experience in the healthcare space, preferably in roles within Customer Success, Business Development, or strategic customer-facing roles.
• Deep exposure to payer business models and economics.
• Exceptional relationship-building skills, with a focus on forging meaningful bonds across all organizational levels.
• Ability to thrive in ambiguity and drive outcomes by tackling unfamiliar challenges.
• Highly data-driven and self-starting, with the ability to conduct complex analyses and translate ambiguous problems into actionable insights.
• Operationally excellent, capable of managing multiple high-impact customers and a large volume of moving parts.
• Seeks an environment that fosters individual growth through open feedback and high autonomy.
• Motivated by the opportunity to address one of the defining challenges of our generation: access to mental healthcare.