Description Living the vision of "Advancing the business of healthcare today for a better tomorrow," Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) works to perpetuate success throughout the healthcare industry as the premier association for professionals who lead medical practices. Since 1926, through data, people, insights, and advocacy, MGMA empowers medical group practices to innovate and create meaningful change in healthcare. We believe the future is what you make it, and we’re here to support the people who are ready to make the world a better place. Tomorrow will be remarkable because MGMA is here to help.
The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA is looking for a Senior Manager, State Association Services to join our Denver team.
The Senior Manager, State Association Services is accountable for the people, operating system, and coordinated delivery of MGMA's state association portfolio. The role translates portfolio strategy into annual operating priorities, resource plans, service standards, and measurable execution across four integrated areas: association management, affiliate partnerships and operations, state meetings and education, and state marketing. The position reports to the Product Manager, Membership.
The Senior Manager develops a high-performing team, strengthens governance and volunteer relationships, leads approved state-model transitions, and ensures that state programs and services are delivered consistently, efficiently, and in alignment with MGMA priorities. The role works closely with the Product Manager and Product Owner throughout MGMA's Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC), contributing operational insight, implementation leadership, launch readiness, adoption, and continuous improvement.
Essential Functions Team Leadership & Performance Management
- Establish clear team goals, individual accountabilities, service standards, operating rhythms, and performance expectations aligned with approved portfolio priorities.
- Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, team planning sessions, performance reviews, talent-development discussions, and succession planning.
- Allocate state portfolios, initiatives, and specialist capacity based on chapter and affiliate needs, workload, risk, strategic importance, and available resources.
- Build an inclusive, collaborative, and accountable team culture centered on service excellence, sound judgment, continuous learning, and measurable outcomes.
- Provide escalation support and decision guidance for complex governance, volunteer, financial, operational, event, partner, and stakeholder matters.
Strategy Translation & Portfolio Leadership
- Translate the state membership portfolio strategy into annual operating priorities, integrated delivery plans, resource allocations, service standards, and team goals.
- Ensure Association Managers and functional leads convert MGMA priorities into coordinated state plans and high-quality member and volunteer experiences.
- Assess portfolio performance, capacity, risks, and opportunities; develop recommendations for investment, service-model changes, corrective action, or escalation to leadership.
- Establish scalable practices, templates, playbooks, and quality standards that improve consistency while preserving appropriate flexibility for differing state models and local needs.
- Maintain a portfolio-level view of state health, governance maturity, financial performance, program delivery, member engagement, volunteer capacity, and operational risk.
- Monitor relevant association, membership, education, marketing, meetings, and volunteer-leadership trends and incorporate validated insights into operating recommendations.
State Model Transitions & Portfolio Evolution
- Lead the coordinated execution of approved affiliate-to-chapter transitions, chapter formation, reaffiliation, re-entry, consolidation, and other state-model changes.
- Establish transition plans, decision gates, readiness criteria, responsibilities, dependencies, risk controls, implementation milestones, and stabilization measures.
- Coordinate the legal, finance, membership, technology, data, marketing, events, education, governance, and communications work required to execute each approved transition.
- Ensure governing documents, agreements, financial controls, volunteer structures, systems, operational procedures, and member communications are ready before launch or conversion.
- Prepare clear options, business implications, risks, recommendations, and escalation points for strategic or product decisions reserved for the Product Manager and other authorized leaders.
- Conduct post-transition reviews and ensure lessons learned are incorporated into future transition playbooks and operating standards.
Governance, Volunteer & Stakeholder Leadership
- Serve as a senior advisor and escalation point for state boards, committees, affiliate leaders, management partners, and other volunteer stakeholders.
- Promote effective governance, staff-volunteer role clarity, succession planning, policy adherence, sound decision-making, and documented follow-through across the state portfolio.
- Establish and oversee a recurring review cycle for bylaws, policies, committee charters, agreements, and other governing documents, including clear ownership, approval, version-control, and retention practices.
- Coordinate appropriate legal, executive, or subject-matter review when governing documents or decisions require interpretation, amendment, approval, or risk assessment.
- Guide the team in developing board materials, recommendations, meeting plans, decision records, action logs, and follow-up communications.
- Build trusted relationships while balancing state needs, member value, organizational consistency, financial stewardship, and MGMA priorities.
- Represent MGMA professionally with volunteer leaders, sponsors, partners, vendors, association management companies, and external collaborators.
Integrated Program, Meetings, Education & Marketing Delivery
- Lead integrated planning across Association Managers, affiliate operations, meetings and education, and state marketing to deliver a coordinated state strategy.
- Oversee the state meetings and education portfolio, including prioritization, operating standards, budget performance, risk escalation, and coordination among the State Meetings Specialist, Association Managers, and internal delivery partners.
- Ensure individual state meetings and events have clear objectives, roles, timelines, budgets, vendor plans, registration processes, sponsor or partner fulfillment requirements, run-of-show documentation, and post-event review.
- Oversee the State Marketing Lead's planning and execution of campaigns, communications, toolkits, and promotional support aligned with approved state priorities.
- Partner with Membership, Marketing, Education, Finance, Technology, Data, Events, and other internal teams to deliver integrated programs and services.
- Ensure meetings, events, campaigns, education, communications, and state initiatives are completed on time, within approved scope and budget, and to established quality standards.
Affiliate Operations & Functional Leadership
- Lead and manage the State Operations & Affiliate Partnerships Lead as the subject-matter owner for affiliate relationships, agreements, operational processes, financial operations, reporting, systems enablement, and scalable affiliate services.
- Approve operating priorities and service standards while enabling the State Operations & Affiliate Partnerships Lead to design workflows, manage day-to-day affiliate operations, develop recommendations, and lead implementation within delegated authority.
- Ensure state operational workflows, financial processes, communications, reporting, and systems-support practices are documented, consistently applied, and continuously improved.
- Resolve resource conflicts and escalate material strategic, policy, product, financial, legal, or reputational issues through the appropriate decision path.
PDLC, Cross-Functional Delivery & Change Leadership
- Partner with the Product Manager and Product Owner to translate validated state and affiliate needs into business requirements, prioritized initiatives, delivery plans, launch-readiness activities, adoption strategies, and measurable outcomes across MGMA's PDLC.
- Ensure team members contribute member, volunteer, and operational insights during discovery and participate in requirements development, testing, demonstrations, retrospectives, and other PDLC activities as appropriate.
- Provide operational feasibility, capacity, risk, implementation, and change-management input without assuming product strategy, investment, roadmap, or backlog decision rights assigned to the Product Manager or Product Owner.
- Lead the people, process, training, communications, and stakeholder-readiness work needed to implement approved products, services, systems, and state-model changes.
- Monitor adoption and operational performance after launch, identify gaps, and coordinate corrective action or recommendations through the appropriate PDLC and management channels.
Financial, Operational & Risk Management
- Develop, manage, and monitor approved budgets for the state association portfolio and related programs.
- Review financial performance, forecasts, variances, cost-to-serve assumptions, and resource utilization; recommend actions to achieve financial and program objectives.
- Oversee vendor relationships, contracts, expenditures, and resource commitments within approved authority and organizational controls.
- Identify operational, governance, financial, legal, reputational, service, and delivery risks and ensure timely mitigation, documentation, or escalation.
- Ensure consistent application of organizational policies, financial controls, service models, approval authorities, and documentation requirements.
Measurement, Insights & Continuous Improvement
- Define and monitor operating indicators for state and affiliate health, governance, engagement, participation, service quality, meetings and education, marketing performance, financial performance, transitions, and team capacity.
- Use data, member and volunteer feedback, operational signals, and team insights to evaluate effectiveness, identify root causes, and prioritize improvements.
- Prepare concise portfolio updates, decision papers, business cases, recommendations, risk summaries, and executive-level presentations for internal and volunteer leaders.
- Lead process-improvement and change-management efforts that strengthen scalability, accountability, efficiency, stakeholder experience, and team capacity.
- Perform other duties as assigned and necessary to support organizational success.
Supervisory Duties Direct supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization's policies and applicable laws. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training employees; coaching, mentoring, and providing guidance; planning, assigning, and directing work; setting goals, appraising performance, and recognizing achievements; addressing performance or behavioral issues; and resolving employee concerns.
Requirements
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Ability to consistently promote, support, work, and act in a manner that advances MGMA's mission, vision, values, and behaviors.
- Demonstrated people-leadership capability, including coaching, delegation, performance management, talent development, succession planning, and change leadership.
- Ability to translate portfolio strategy into operating priorities, resource plans, service standards, measurable goals, and coordinated execution.
- Ability to maintain clear boundaries among product strategy, product delivery, functional subject-matter ownership, and people or operational leadership.
- Advanced knowledge of association governance, volunteer leadership, chapter and affiliate operating models, member engageme nt, meetings and education, and state marketing.
- Ability to lead through influence in a matrixed environment and drive cross-functional outcomes without relying on direct authority.
- Advanced stakeholder-management, facilitation, negotiation, conflict-resolution, decision-framing, and executive-communication skills.
- Strong financial acumen, including budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, cost-to-serve evaluation, resource allocation, vendor oversight, and business-case development.
- Strong program and portfolio management skills, including management of multiple associations, transitions, initiatives, deadlines, dependencies, and stakeholders.
- Working knowledge of product-development and Agile practices, including discovery, requirements, prioritization, testing, launch readiness, adoption, retrospectives, and continuous improvement.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to use qualitative and quantitative evidence to identify trends, assess performance, make recommendations, and improve outcomes.
- Ability to manage complexity, ambiguity, competing priorities, and sensitive stakeholder matters while maintaining service quality, judgment, and accountability.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including reports, business cases, recommendations, presentations, governance materials, and sensitive communications.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications and experience with AMS or CRM, event, collaboration, project-management, and reporting platforms.
Education
- Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Management, Communications, Marketing, Nonprofit Management, or a related field is required.
- Master's degree in a related field is preferred.
Experience
- 7+ years of progressively responsible experience in association management, nonprofit program management, membership services, affiliate or component relations, or a related field.
- 3+ years of direct people-management experience, including coaching, performance management, and team development.
- Experience leading a multi-program, multi-chapter, or multi-affiliate portfolio with responsibility for operations, budgets, stakeholders, and measurable outcomes.
- Experience working directly with volunteer leaders, boards, committees, chapters, or affiliates and applying sound governance practices.
- Experience leading cross-functional work in a matrixed, federated, or shared-services environment.
- Experience leading organizational change, service-model transitions, chapter or affiliate transitions, or comparably complex implementation work is preferred.
- Experience with association technology platforms, including AMS or CRM, event platforms, collaboration and project-management tools, and reporting systems.
- Experience overseeing meetings or education, marketing, member engagement, vendor management, and operational-improvement initiatives.
- Familiarity with healthcare organizations and medical group practices is preferred.
An equivalent combination of education and experience may be substituted on a year-for-year basis.
Additional Requirements / Licenses / Certifications
- Certified Association Executive (CAE) certification is preferred.
- Project-management, Agile, Scrum, or change-management certification is preferred.
- Must have reliable transportation and a valid driver's license.
- Some travel to state affiliate meetings, conferences, and MGMA events across the United States is required.
Working environment:
The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by employees in this role, to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
While performing the duties of this job, employee is regularly required to successfully interact and accurately exchange information using the following suite of verbal and non-verbal communication skills critical to expressing oneself and conducting professional interactions on behalf of the business:
- Ability to read, write, edit
- Ability to converse, discuss, convey
- Also includes interactive engagement with software applications, computer graphics, and the ability to conduct internet research.
While performing the duties of this job, employee is regularly required to successfully navigate scenarios requiring the following observational abilities:
- Ability to perceive, identify, recognize
- Ability to detect, determine, discern, judge
- Ability to assess, estimate, compare
This is a largely sedentary role, so employee must be able to remain in a sedentary position while focusing for extended periods of time throughout the workday. Position also requires occasional movement inside the office to access file cabinets, printers, etc. While performing the duties of this job, employee is regularly required to successfully navigate scenarios requiring the following operational abilities:
- Ability to operate PC/keyboard and other office productivity equipment
- Ability to position self to traverse/navigate around typical office setting
- Ability pull/push, lift, open/close, grasp/manipulate, transport up to 10 lbs.
Why Work for Us:
MGMA prides itself on providing team members from all walks of life with an inclusive work environment and comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, life insurance, and both short- and long-term disability. We invest in our employees' growth with a 401(k) plan featuring company match, profit-sharing, and professional development opportunities. We prioritize work-life balance through a hybrid work schedule, an employee assistance program, and a generous time off package, which includes three weeks of vacation, 80 hours of sick time, and 11 paid holidays. From a flexible spending account and on-site fitness center to volunteer opportunities and tuition assistance, MGMA is committed to giving employees a well-rounded and gratifying employment experience.
We are an equal opportunity employer. All applicants shall be considered according to their individual qualifications, abilities, experience, and other employment standards. There will be no discrimination due to gender or gender identity, race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, sexual orientation, veteran/military status, or any other basis protected by applicable law.
MGMA does not engage in immigration sponsorship or relocation assistance.
The application deadline is November 16, 2026. This may be extended in the event additional time is necessary to receive a sufficient number of qualified candidates. The approximate salary range for this position is $112,000- $123,000, depending on the skills, education, and experience of the candidate.
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