Director - Pharmacy Operations

Why Wellmark: We are a mutual insurance company owned by our policy holders across Iowa and South Dakota, and we’ve built our reputation on over 80 years’ worth of trust. We are not motivated by profits. We are motivated by the well-being of our friends, family, and neighbors–our members. If you’re passionate about joining an organization working hard to put its members first, to provide best-in-class service, and one that is committed to sustainability and innovation, consider applying today! 

Learn more about our unique benefit offerings here. 

Use your strengths as a Director of Pharmacy at Wellmark!  

About the role: As Director of Pharmacy, you will be a true change leader and help guide the vision and direction around internal operational efficiencies to align with Wellmark’s pharmacy strategy. Having a PharmD and managed-care experience is a plus as this role oversees teams dedicated to researching member and provider inquiries around pharmacy benefit, as well as compliance and auditing of this work. Cross-functional alignment is critical for Wellmark to continue innovating in our Pharmacy space, so you will engage and maintain transparent communication across the organization to bring all stakeholders along on our transformative journey. As a leader of leaders, you will guide, mentor, and build an evolving team of insightful, forward-thinking, data-driven pharmacy colleagues. You will encourage proactive solutions to innovate and drive new cost-effective and/or growth-focused pharmacy strategies.    

About you: You believe health care can be better and are passionate about finding ways to influence our work centered around total cost of care. You are a self-starter, analytical, innovative, influential, and partner effectively with internal and external stakeholders. The unknown and opportunity to build something from scratch excites you, because to you it is just another challenge to overcome on the path of rewarding, strategic work. You’re an experienced people-leader who believes mentorship and team member growth is the key to success. You leverage your teams' strengths and subject matter expertise to drive results. You love to teach and understand the benefits of transparent, dedicated leadership, because your team members’ individual achievements mean success for Wellmark.  

Top candidates will have PharmD.

This position will work a hybrid schedule of at least 3 days in Wellmark's Des Moines office, with 2 days remote option. As a leader, there may be additional days in the office to meet business needs.   

Internal title: Director Pharmacy 

Preferred Qualifications - Great to have:

• PharmD.
• MBA or master's degree preferred; health outcomes training; finance and/or business-related pharmacy practice.

Required Qualifications - Must have:

• Bachelor's degree, or direct and applicable work experience, OR PharmD.
• If PharmD, active and unrestricted Pharmacy license in Iowa or South Dakota (individual must be licensed in the state in which they reside) or ability to obtain within 6 months from date of hire.
• Minimum 7 years of combined experience in pharmacy, product management, sales or related role, with demonstrated financial acumen, including an understanding of underwriting, financial metrics, etc.
• Prior experience should reflect the ability to build, implement, and drive forward product strategies that achieve bottom-line results. Ability to measure and evaluate work processes, services, and products to ensure alignment with strategic goals. Ability to re-design or improve processes as needed.
• Healthcare or related industry experience, including knowledge of health insurance products, benefit design, etc. Understanding of applicable rules, regulations, and guidelines. Must be aware of implications to department.
• Demonstrated leadership experience, including building/developing high performing leaders and leaders of teams that consistently deliver value-added results. Experience demonstrating effective resource management/planning, budgeting, forecasting and strategic planning.
• Highly effective analytical skills, business intuition, and demonstrated proficiency distilling large amounts of information into the most relevant insights with demonstrated ability to develop understanding and appreciation for upstream and downstream impacts in processes.
• Is forward-thinking, exhibits the ability to learn quickly; advocates and leads change efforts; analyzes successes and failures for improvement opportunities; enjoys challenges. Works well under pressure while remaining adaptable, open to feedback and focused during unanticipated challenges.
• Strong verbal and written communications skills with the ability to successfully share insights or recommendations with stakeholders, including senior leadership. Ability to develop and facilitate presentations.
• Outstanding collaboration skills with the ability to influence, solicit cooperation and action from others and the ability to collaborate with business and technical leaders to educate and gain understanding and buy-in.
• Proficiency with the Microsoft Windows Office Suite, including Word and Excel. Technical aptitude to learn new systems quickly.
• Some travel required.

What you will do as Director of Pharmacy - Operations:

a. Work collaboratively to meet the goals and objectives of the pharmacy program with the contracted pharmacy benefit manager.



b. Drive collaboration, organization, prioritization of critical work functions, and engagement across matrixed workgroups and teams to deliver product roadmaps from development, implementation and client consulting and support.



c. Exercise direction and leadership for the pharmacy team members accountable for developing, pricing, naming, creating market position and packaging of Wellmark's pharmacy products that, in turn, support Wellmark and divisional strategy and goals.



d. Provide direction and leadership for the pharmacy team members responsible for supporting market intelligence, marketing, sales, and client support.



e. Support other business areas and lead the analytical and financial framework within the pharmacy team to identify practical and meaningful business improvement opportunities across our product and solutions portfolio and functional capabilities.



f. Provide day-to-day leadership of financial and human resources, primarily focusing on employee and leader coaching, development, performance improvement, coordination and budgeting for multiple staff, and department(s) specific functions/services. Drive and produce results that are effective, accurate, and timely. Align work with department strategy and performance improvement plans.



g. Leverage insights, data, and competitive intelligence to track and monitor pharmacy solution performance. Facilitate the identification and connection to the portfolio of solutions in our product catalogue and work to drive to the solutions on our future roadmap.



h. Serve as a key liaison and customer interface for Wellmark's pharmacy program. Build strong relationships and closely partner and consult with Sales, Product, Segment Planning and Performance, Client Consulting, Member Experience, Communications, and other internal stakeholders to drive continued alignment of development and implementation as well as to ensure successful activation for and with sales.



i. Ensure compliance with our commercial and government lines of business by understanding rules and regulations impacting our business at the state and federal level. Facilitate the necessary connections to the legal and regulatory communication process as well as the marketing process to support sales efforts.



j. Partner and execute in vendor relationships. Accountable for managing vendor relationships and ensuring alignment with Wellmark's pharmacy strategy and enhancing the customer experience.



k. Analyze pharmacy & medical benefit drug utilization data to determine overall program effectiveness and identify opportunities for improvement.



l. Other duties as assigned.

This job requires a non-compete agreement.

An Equal Opportunity Employer

The policy of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is to recruit, hire, train and promote individuals in all job classifications without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by law.

Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation due to a disability at any stage of the employment application process should contact us at [email protected]

Please inform us if you meet the definition of a "Covered DoD official".

At this time, Wellmark is not considering applicants for this position that require any type of immigration sponsorship (additional work authorization or permanent work authorization) now or in the future to work in the United States. This includes, but IS NOT LIMITED TO: F1-OPT, F1-CPT, H-1B, TN, L-1, J-1, etc. For additional information around work authorization needs please refer to the following resources:Nonimmigrant Workers and Green Card for Employment-Based Immigrants 

Wellmark supports and expects the responsible use of AI for our workforce! We welcome the responsible use of these tools by job seekers as well and are interested in learning from you; you will have an opportunity in the application process to share which tools you used and how you applied them.