Senior Director, Innovation

Nova Scotia Health (NSH) is the largest provincial health authority in the Maritimes providing health services to Nova Scotians, along with specialized health services to Maritimers and Atlantic Canadians. With a budget of over $2 billion, NSH operates 9 regional hospitals, a quaternary care center, and over 135 other service sites (e.g., community hospitals, long-term care facilities, community services, support, and administrative offices). NSH’s expansive network of health professionals provides the healthcare and services needed by the province. As the largest employer in Nova Scotia, NSH is home to over 24,000 employees, 2,600 physicians, 5,000 learners, and 7,000 volunteers. It is supported by over 40 healthcare foundations and 33 auxiliaries that raise funds to support facilities, healthcare innovation, and services.

As one provincial organization with a commitment to delivering high-impact healthcare solutions, Nova Scotia Health is well positioned to both lead and partner on health-related innovation initiatives, becoming a Maritime hub of research, innovation, and discovery.

During this titular time in the healthcare landscape for Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Health is seeking a Senior Director, Innovation to join its executive team and champion large-scale innovations to transform the health system.

Key Responsibilities

Reporting to the Vice President of Research, Innovation and Discovery (RI&D) and Chief Nurse Executive (CNE) and in collaboration with leaders across the organization, the Senior Director, Innovation is responsible for identifying and driving innovative opportunities, building, and leveraging strong internal and external stakeholder relations to enable the achievement of desired innovation outcomes.  The Senior Director will need to be a highly effective strategist and planner, responsible for overseeing the implementation and testing of innovation initiatives, as well as ongoing innovation operations, within the organization and the innovation portfolio. With a focus on translating strategy to execution and working with key partners to ultimately transition to operations leads, a key measure of success for the Senior Director will ultimately be scaling successful innovation pilot projects across the system after they have been tested to support the realization of the health sector and organizational strategic priorities. 

The Senior Director ensures continuous improvement to advance a vision of excellence within the provision of Innovation Services and is responsible for the development, maintenance, and monitoring of quality programs, and compliance with relevant legislation, standards, and accreditation requirements. The Senior Director, Innovation facilitates a pioneering force in an innovative environment that encourages strong project management, the creation of proofs of concepts, and brokering of external partnerships. This strategy aligns with the current and proposed future state of Nova Scotia Health and works closely with educational institutions, health system partners, clinicians, government, and other partners on planning our current and future workforce requirements, and on the preparation of our health providers.

Ideal Candidate Profile

As the ideal candidate, you are a strategic, self-motivated leader and systems thinker who demonstrates a spirit of inquiry and innovation. Along with masters degree, you bring strong administrative and financial acumen. It would be considered significant asset if you have leadership experience within the health care sector, in particular experience working with health sector industry partners, relevant funding agencies and programs, commercialization and economic development agencies, and health sciences enterprises.

You have experience leading significant operational portfolios and supporting the development and execution of organizational strategies. As a creative leader, you are able to draw on different perspectives and innovative ideas from inside and outside the organization. Well-versed in the principals of organizational change management, you thrive in a fast-paced, high-impact environment and understand innately that operational and change initiatives must align with the vision, mission, and values of an organization and you actively align change with evidence-based best practices. You are highly skilled in the art of building capacity for change within your team and ensuring appropriate systems, processes and structures are in place to enable your organization to realize transformational objectives. You are highly collaborative, and you showcase this by meeting with people to build relationships, and by effectively bringing together multi-disciplinary groups to work on projects and building connections.

You are a creative and skilled negotiator, communicator, and project manager with the innate ability to think conceptually. You bring a deep commitment as a leader to the principles of equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility. As a mentor, you actively support and encourage development and create an opportunity to grow skills within your team. Overall, you thrive in environments where you have the opportunity to advance and implement organizational innovation initiatives that have profound, system-wide impacts.

How to Apply

If you are interested in pursuing this exciting opportunity, please apply online at http://www.kbrs.ca/Career/17071. For more information or to ask any questions, please contact Daniella Sam at dsam@kbrs.ca, Erin MacDonald at emacdonald@kbrs.ca, or Andrea Forbes-Hurley at aforbeshurley@kbrs.ca.

Diversity Statement

Nova Scotia Health is committed to being a workforce that is free of discrimination, values diversity, and is representative, at all job levels, of the people we serve. We encourage all qualified applicants who self-identify as Indigenous, Black/African Nova Scotian, Persons of Colour, Foreign Nationals/Newcomers, Persons with Disabilities, 2SLGBTQIA+ to apply and self-identify.

Accessibility Statement

Nova Scotia Health is committed to accommodating applicants with disabilities throughout the hiring process, in accordance with the Nova Scotia Accessibility Act, and will work with applicants requesting accommodation at any stage of the hiring process. If you require an accommodation to participate as a candidate, please contact accommodate@kbrs.ca