Deputy Executive Director for Patient-Centered Research Programs
| Req Number: | L3B5M0 |
| Location: | Washington, DC |
| Posted: | 5/29/2026 |
| Category: | Government/Not-For-Profit : Not-For-Profit |
| Job Type: | Permanent |
| Compensation: | USD 370,000.00 - 525,000.00 Yearly |
Deputy Executive Director for Patient-Centered Research Programs
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)
POSITION SUMMARY
The position of Deputy Executive Director represents a rare opportunity for a seasoned, mission-driven executive to steward the future of patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) and enabling initiatives nationwide.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is a nonprofit organization that funds patient-centered CER. Patient-centered CER compares the potential benefits and harms of different healthcare options, generating evidence to empower patients, caregivers and other healthcare decision makers with information to make choices that reflect individual needs and preferences.
CER is vital in today’s healthcare environment, with a growing array of effective care options for many conditions. Too often, people face health choices without information to help them weigh the trade-offs and make informed healthcare decisions for themselves and their families.
PCORI-funded patient-centered CER addresses questions and concerns important to patients and their caregivers across a wide range of health conditions affecting people across the country, along with projects designed to help bring practice-changing CER results into real-world care settings more quickly. Since its inception, PCORI has awarded more than 2,600 CER and related projects, significantly expanding the body of clinical evidence available to inform healthcare decision making.
PCORI’s unique place within the health research ecosystem stems from its unwavering focus on patients and their health outcomes. The organization is widely recognized as a national leader in driving clinical research to be more patient-centered, which results in evidence that is both relevant and actionable. Central to this work is PCORI’s commitment to the meaningful engagement of patients, caregivers and the broader healthcare community in PCORI’s work and PCORI-funded research.
The Deputy Executive Director for Patient-Centered Research Programs (PCRP) is a transformational leader who advances PCORI’s funding strategy and serves as a thought leader on behalf of PCORI to advance patient-centered CER. Reporting to the Executive Director and serving on the Executive Leadership Team, this leader serves as both a strategic integrator and operational driver—ensuring that PCORI’s funded portfolio continues to evolve with rigor, innovation, and measurable impact.
The Deputy Executive Director for PCRP oversees complementary programmatic divisions focused on research and research-related funding, including Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research, Engagement, Dissemination and Implementation, Research Infrastructure and Innovation, and Program Operations. This executive ensures these functions operate as a cohesive, high-performing ecosystem in close partnership with other PCORI departments (e.g. Strategy, Planning and Outreach; Operations; etc.) and translates PCORI’s goals and strategic priorities into aligned plans, efficient operations, and forward-looking approaches that strengthen PCORI’s entire research funding lifecycle to empower people with the resources and information needed to improve their health outcomes and lead healthier lives.
In addition, the Deputy Executive Director for PCRP builds and sustains strong relationships with patients, caregivers, clinicians, payers, purchasers, health systems, academic institutions, policymakers, and other partners and key communities to ensure that a broad range of perspectives inform PCORI’s work and that the impact of PCORI’s work is visible on a national scale. This leader also plays a central role in fostering cross-functional collaboration, operational excellence, and a culture of innovation and continuous learning across the organization.
In this high-profile role, the Deputy Executive Director for PCRP will propel PCORI’s research funding enterprise forward and shapes patient‑centered CER and enabling initiatives at a national level – expanding PCORI’s reach and impact.
PATIENT-CENTERED OUTCOMES RESEARCH INSTITUTE
PCORI is a non-profit organization authorized by Congress to fund patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER).
Patient-centered CER compares the potential benefits and harms of different healthcare options, generating evidence that empowers patients, caregivers and other healthcare decision makers with information to make informed choices that reflect their needs and preferences.
Patient-centered CER is essential in today’s healthcare environment, where an expanding range of effective care options exists for many conditions. Too often, people face choices without information to help them weigh the tradeoffs of their options and make informed healthcare decisions for themselves or their families.
Vision
Patients and the public have information they can use to make decisions that reflect their desired health outcomes.
Mission
PCORI helps people make informed healthcare decisions, and improves healthcare delivery and outcomes, by producing and promoting high-integrity, evidence-based information that comes from research guided by patients, caregivers, and the broader healthcare community.
Research Done Differently®
PCORI’s unique place in the health research landscape stems from its focus on patients and their outcomes. PCORI is widely recognized as a leader in driving U.S. clinical research to be more patient-centered, which results in evidence that is more relevant and useful.
PCORI emphasizes the meaningful engagement of patients, caregivers and the broader healthcare community in all aspects of PCORI-funded research as well as the dissemination and uptake of research findings.
PCORI actively engages patients, caregivers and others from across the health and healthcare community in its work in a variety of ways. Advisory panels review and provide input on critical research questions, while PCORI’s funding application review process brings together patients, researchers and other stakeholders to identify high-quality, scientifically rigorous and patient-centered studies. Throughout the research process, PCORI requires ongoing meaningful engagement of patients and other partners in studies. When studies conclude, PCORI includes patients and stakeholders in the peer review process to ensure each study’s final report addresses the challenges faced by patients and their caregivers. Both the final research report and peer review summary are made publicly available on the PCORI website.
- Funding of Patient-Centered CER — supporting research that addresses questions important to patients, caregivers and other healthcare decision makers, generating meaningful evidence that enables better-informed health and healthcare decisions.
- Engagement in Research — actively involving patients and other health decision makers as partners across the continuum of PCORI’s work, from research topic selection to disseminating and implementing results, ensuring the research findings are useful, relevant and trustworthy for those PCORI serves across the nation.
- Dissemination and Implementation — making the results of PCORI-funded studies easily accessible and usable by those who need them to make better-informed decisions about health and health care.
- Research Infrastructure — funding initiatives like PCORnet®, a national research resource that enhances the capacity to conduct patient-centered CER more efficiently on a national scale, and learning from the healthcare experiences of millions of patients nationwide to improve the accuracy, efficiency and relevance of CER.
Impact
PCORI-funded patient-centered CER concentrates on addressing the everyday health and healthcare challenges that people face across the country, including diabetes, obesity, cancer, maternal morbidity and mortality, intellectual and developmental disabilities, rare diseases, mental health and many others.
Results from PCORI-funded studies are freely available to the public, with versions available for both patients and clinicians posted on the website. These studies often lead to findings published in leading medical journals and presented at major scientific meetings. Additionally, the results from PCORI-funded studies regularly inform clinical practice guidelines and health policies developed by others.
How PCORI is Funded
PCORI is funded through the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (PCOR Trust Fund), which was authorized to be established through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Under a 2019 amendment to the authorizing law, the PCOR Trust Fund receives income from statutory appropriations from the general fund of the Treasury and a fee assessed on private insurance and self-insured health plans.
THE ROLE
The next Deputy Executive Director for Patient-Centered Research Programs (PCRP) will oversee a coordinated set of research and research-related programs and translates PCORI’s strategy into aligned priorities, effective operations, and forward-looking approaches across the research funding lifecycle, while cultivating strong partnerships with patients, caregivers, clinicians, payers, purchasers, health systems, academic institutions, policymakers, and other partners and key communities.
The successful candidate will be responsible for the following priorities, with success measured by continued achievements in the following areas:
1. Strategy & Executive Leadership for PCRP
The Deputy Executive Director for PCRP is a strategic architect and executive leader who will steer PCORI's programmatic vision at an exciting time for PCORI. In close partnership with the Executive Director and PCORI executives, this leader will:
- Enhance and drive the overarching programmatic strategy for PCRP, ensuring coherence, complementarity, and synergy - in partnership with PCRP Chief Officers - across all PCRP divisions: Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research (CER), Engagement, Dissemination & Implementation, Research Infrastructure & Innovation, and Program Operations.
- Lead the development and execution of long-range strategic plans for PCORI’s research and research-related initiatives implemented through PCRP, tightly aligned with PCORI's mission, its purpose and priorities.
- Serve as a key contributor to PCORI-wide, enterprise-level strategy, culture, and decision-making.
- Identify emerging trends, opportunities, and challenges in patient-centered CER and across PCORI’s funding portfolio to guide programmatic funding directions, infrastructure, and innovation.
- Partner with executive leadership to establish measurable objectives, evaluate program effectiveness, and ensure accountability.
- Collaborate with PCORI executive leadership to review and uphold PCORI policies and practices in support of PCORI's mission, staff, and culture.
2. External Engagement & Stakeholder Partnership
This role is central to position PCORI as a trustworthy, patient and stakeholder-driven research funder. In close partnership with the Executive Director and PCORI executives, the Deputy Executive Director for PCRP will:
- Cultivate and sustain high-value relationships with patients, caregivers, clinicians, payers, purchasers, health systems, academic institutions, policymakers, and other partners.
- Ensure stakeholder perspectives meaningfully inform research and related funding strategies and activities, funding decisions, and initiative design and evaluation.
- Lead and continue to enhance PCORI's engagement ecosystem, including advisory panels, public workshops, collaborative initiatives, and other engagement mechanisms.
- Partner with the Executive Director and other leaders to expand PCORI's reach and impact through strategic external engagement, dissemination and implementation of evidence from PCORI-funded research, and research resources, tools, and infrastructure.
- Steward engagement with the Board of Governors and relevant oversight committees related to programmatic activities, ensuring alignment with Board priorities and organizational strategy.
- Oversee the management of PCORI's Methodology Committee to ensure Committee goals and objectives are aligned with PCORI's priorities and are met.
- Serve as a visible ambassador and media spokesperson for the organization, elevating the visibility of the organization's work and understanding of PCORI’s impact.
3. Cross-Departmental and Cross-Divisional Integration & Leadership
The Deputy Executive Director for PCRP will drive cross-departmental collaboration and serve as the unifying force across PCRP's divisions, ensuring they operate as a coordinated, high-performing enterprise. This leader will cultivate alignment, foster effective communication, and maintain and enhance the structures and culture needed for seamless collaboration. Responsibilities include the following requirements:
- Drive cross-departmental collaboration in partnership with executives across PCORI to ensure alignment, communication, and shared accountability across all PCRP divisions and PCORI enterprise functions.
- Ensure that PCRP divisions operate as an integrated ecosystem, with shared priorities, coordinated workflows, and seamless handoffs across the funding lifecycle.
- Partner with division leaders to cultivate their leadership capacity, cross-functional coordination, and high-performing teams.
- Lead, mentor, and empower a team of scientific, operational, and engagement professionals across multiple divisions.
- Ensure clear governance structures, consultative decision-making pathways, and communication that promote transparency, consistency, and organizational coherence.
- Oversee the harmonization of policies, processes, and standards across divisions for consistency where appropriate, quality, and operational excellence in program execution.
- Lead the alignment of division-level plans, timelines, and resource needs with PCORI-wide strategic and operational priorities.
- Ensure teams have the tools, processes, and support needed to collaborate effectively and deliver high-quality, timely programmatic outputs.
4. Programmatic Operations, Optimization & Innovation
This executive will ensure that PCORI's research funding enterprise operates with excellence, efficiency, and forward-looking innovation. Responsibilities include the following requirements:
- Lead the continued evolution and optimization of PCRP's end-to-end processes to support PCORI's strategic directions and multi-year plans.
- Oversee all operational aspects of the research funding lifecycle, including funding announcements, application solicitation, merit review, award selection and negotiation, award management, and dissemination of research results.
- Guide approaches to interactions with applicants and awardees, ensuring clarity, transparency, and a seamless experience across programs.
- Champion innovation across PCRP - from operational improvements to new models of research funding, engagement, and infrastructure.
- Serve as a stabilizing and unifying presence during periods of organizational change, helping teams navigate ambiguity while maintaining focus, morale, and mission alignment.
- Champion a culture of continuous learning and improvement, encouraging teams to share insights, adopt best practices, and innovate collaboratively.
- Foster a culture of partnership, mutual respect, and collective problem-solving between PCRP divisions and in concert with other PCORI departments.
- Attract, develop, and retain top talent while cultivating a mission-driven and collaborative workplace culture.
SUCCESS FACTORS
As this is a highly visible role within the organization and surrounding community, this person will be tasked with several key action items to be conducted within the first year, including:
- Develop a deep understanding of PCORI's purpose, mission, and broader position in the health and healthcare research ecosystem.
- Establish credibility and build relationships with the staff, Board, relevant committees and panels, and stakeholders and constituencies.
- Integrate as a key member of the Executive Leadership Team to inform PCORI strategies and align on top priorities.
- Assume strategic leadership and management of programmatic department and its end¬-to-end activities, sustaining and bolstering momentum.
- Sustain a motivated, cohesive, and professionally skilled leadership and management team and staff, whose work is aligned with PCORI's strategic and operational plans.
- Represent PCORI and serve as a spokesperson to communicate the organization’s mission, role as a funder, and impact.
THE CANDIDATE
The next Deputy Executive Director will be a transformative, mission-driven leader who advances PCORI’s research funding enterprise and helps shape patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research at a national level.
Experiences and Qualifications
- 15+ years' experience with strategic and analytic expertise in a defined area of research within PCORI's mandate (e.g. health services research, pragmatic clinical trials, outcomes research, community-based participatory research, etc.) as either primary research or research portfolio management. Health and healthcare cross-sector experience is also acceptable.
- Demonstrated commitment to engaging patients and healthcare communities in research or programs.
- Collaborative and adaptable leader who works effectively across disciplines and teams, leads through change with flexibility, and engages governing and advisory bodies with a collegial, respectful approach.
- Public service approach (not self or individual-centered) and commitment to transparency.
- Patient-centered and stakeholder-driven perspective that incorporates understanding of the importance of patient and stakeholder values in implementing the mission.
- Strong program and program administration experience within a clinical/research setting applicable to the understanding of specific goals of funding announcements and of the challenges of managing funded portfolios.
- Compelling communicator and people leader with the ability to engage external stakeholders, inspire and motivate internal teams, set clear goals and expectations, deliver constructive feedback, and effectively lead, delegate to, and support highly skilled experts and multidisciplinary teams.
EDUCATION AND CREDENTIALS
A graduate degree in a Clinical, Scientific and/or Public Health related field is required.
COMPENSATION
Compensation for this position is designed to attract top executive talent and includes a competitive base salary, incentive bonus structure, and benefits package. The anticipated base salary range for this role is $370,000-$525,000. Final offers are based on several factors such as the position's responsibilities, the candidate's experience, education, and skills.
PROCEDURE FOR CANDIDACY
Applications should include 1) a curriculum vitae and 2) a letter of interest that addresses the responsibilities and requirements described above, as well as the applicant’s motivation to apply. To ensure full consideration, inquiries, nominations, and applications should be submitted electronically, in confidence, to: tara.vittese@kornferry.com.
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Korn Ferry shall provide equal employment opportunity to all qualified candidates, and will refer candidates without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected basis. Artificial Intelligence tools may be used in connection with the recruitment process for this position.
