Senior Manager, Learning Design & Innovation.

The Aspen Group (TAG) is one of the largest and most trusted retail healthcare business support organizations in the U.S., supporting over 20,000 healthcare professionals and team members with nearly 1,500 health and wellness offices across 50 states. TAG operates in four distinct categories: dental care, urgent care, medical aesthetics, and animal health. Partnering with independent practice owners and clinicians, TAG provides centralized business support services to five consumer-facing businesses: Aspen Dental, ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers, WellNow Urgent Care, Chapter Aesthetic Studio, and Lovet.

About the role

The Senior Manager of Learning Design & Innovation leads the Instructional Design team while advancing innovative, scalable approaches to improve the quality, speed, and impact of learning solutions across TAG. Reporting to the Director of Learning Design, this role provides leadership, coaching, and development to Instructional Designers, ensuring strong execution across the design and development lifecycle. The Senior Manager translates the broader Learning Design strategy into consistent team practices, high-quality learning experiences, and measurable results. This role also drives learning innovation, identifying opportunities to apply AI-enabled solutions, rapid-development methods, simulations, gamification, and emerging technologies to real business and learner needs.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the Instructional Design team, providing coaching, performance management, and ongoing development to build capabilities for delivering high-quality and innovative learning solutions.
• Oversee learning design execution and quality, guiding solutions from discovery through implementation while ensuring alignment with instructional effectiveness, learner experience, accessibility, and brand standards.
• Translate Learning Design strategy into team execution, connecting organizational goals to daily work and ensuring alignment with business priorities and learner needs.
• Lead AI-enabled learning solutions and efficiencies, implementing responsible AI uses to improve design, development, evaluation, and learner experience through scalable workflows and tools.
• Advance innovative learning approaches, including simulations, scenario-based learning, gamification, rapid-development methods, and interactive solutions, ensuring they address performance needs.
• Design and manage structured pilots tied to defined learner or business needs, establishing hypotheses, success measures, and evaluation plans to determine scalability.
• Scale successful innovations across L&D by creating reusable tools, templates, standards, and implementation guidance for consistent adoption.
• Explore emerging authoring approaches and platform capabilities, partnering with Learning Technology to evaluate new tools and recommend solutions based on scalability and learner experience.
• Develop and maintain learning design standards, resources, templates, and frameworks to promote consistency while allowing flexibility for audience and modality needs.
• Measure learning design and innovation impact using project data, learner feedback, and business inputs to evaluate effectiveness and drive improvements.
• Partner across L&D and the business, collaborating with Learning Technology, Optimization, Leadership Development, HR, and stakeholders to align learning solutions and innovation efforts.
• Serve as a senior learning design partner, consulting on complex initiatives, clarifying performance needs, and ensuring learning investments align with meaningful outcomes.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required; master’s degree preferred. Equivalent experience in instructional design, learning experience design, or learning innovation may be considered.
• 7+ years of experience in learning and development, instructional design, learning experience design, or a related field.
• 3+ years of experience leading, coaching, or managing learning professionals.
• Strong experience leading medium- to large-scale learning initiatives from discovery through implementation.
• Demonstrated experience applying adult learning principles, instructional design methodologies, performance consulting, and learner-centered design.
• Experience with AI-enabled learning solutions, emerging learning technologies, or development efficiencies.
• Experience with simulations, scenario-based learning, gamification, rapid development, or other innovative learning approaches.
• Ability to move ideas from concept through pilot, evaluation, and scalable implementation.
• Strong project and workload management skills, balancing team capacity, priorities, timelines, and quality.
• Experience developing reusable templates, standards, tools, or design systems to improve consistency and scalability.
• Ability to use data, learner feedback, and business input to evaluate learning effectiveness and recommend improvements.
• Strong business acumen, connecting learning design decisions to operational priorities and measurable outcomes.
• Ability to consult with senior leaders and stakeholders to identify performance needs and recommend practical solutions.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, partnering effectively across functions and organizational levels.
• Comfortable balancing strategic leadership, people management, and hands-on involvement in a fast-paced environment.

Pay

Starting at $119,000 DOE + 15% bonus opportunity.