Head of Consultant Relations

Head of Consultant Relations

The Head of Consultant Relations will be responsible for executing Lantern's consultant relations strategy through named ownership of our major consulting and brokerage house relationships. This team both educates on the Lantern value proposition and differentiators for our surgery, cancer, and infusion care products, while simultaneously gathering insight and feedback to help Lantern continuously refine our messaging and support for our consultant partners. The team also partners closely with leaders from Sales and Client Success on relevant consultant-led client growth and expansion opportunities.

Consultant Relations creates value primarily by being embedded in live deals and by building deep, durable relationships at both the national and local level — not by generating outreach volume on its own. The Head of the Consultant Relations team will continue to build out the account ownership model, metrics, supporting processes, and roles and responsibilities for the function based on business needs, and will be accountable for the success of the function. They are responsible for ensuring we build and execute on named account plans and coverage across the major houses, that escalations are routed appropriately so the team's capacity is focused on proactive relationship management, and that we have a regular cadence to report out on results against the plan to the Commercial Leadership Team.

Location: Remote, USA (50% Travel)

Responsibilities:

The Consultant Relations function is instrumental to winning in the marketplace and to the quality of Lantern's deals, not just their volume. Through named ownership of major consulting and brokerage houses, and by staying embedded in active deals through the sales lifecycle, the team builds the trust that makes our consultant/brokerage channel a top referral source. Key responsibilities for the team include:

• Owning named house relationships: building deep, accountable relationships at both the national and local market level — with clear, named ownership of each major house, generally capped at 1–2 houses per person — allowing us to influence and educate the intellectual capital point of view while driving business referrals locally.
• Staying embedded in deals: relationship value is realized by being part of live deals alongside Sales and Solutions Consulting — tailoring deal strategy and leveraging consultant/broker relationships to gain insight and influence decision factors — rather than through standalone outreach.
• Developing content: in partnership with the product marketing and sales enablement team, specific to consultants in general and further tailored to each firm when relevant.
• Educating the marketplace: building awareness around the category (surgery COEs and cancer support) and how to evaluate solutions in this space.
• Growing the business: improving Lantern's win rate with each consulting/brokerage firm and the quality of opportunities they bring to the table, not simply the number of proposals generated.
• Closing active coverage gaps: building out dedicated coverage in currently underserved segments, including Texas/Southeast and public sector/labor.
• Managing escalations deliberately: partnering with Sales and Client Success so that reactive, non-strategic escalations are routed outside CR — freeing the team's bandwidth for proactive house management.
• Identifying opportunities for improvement: both within and outside of the consultant relations mandate, and where appropriate, how to address them.
• Establishing strong cross-functional relationships: by working closely with sales, solutions consulting, client success, analytics, clinical, marketing, network, member services and other related functions to ensure a “one team” approach.

Goals and Metrics

Success for the function is measured primarily by the health and outcomes of named house relationships — not by top-of-funnel activity volume.

• Relationship health and account coverage: success will be measured by the depth, breadth, and health of named relationships across our major consulting and brokerage houses.
• Deal outcomes: win rate and deal quality on opportunities where CR is embedded, alongside overall net ACV growth across both net-new logos and existing business expansion.
• Escalation load: a declining share of the team's time spent on reactive escalations, freeing capacity for proactive relationship-building.

Other metrics will include engagement and impact on qualified opportunities for new and existing clients, and the team's progress building out a durable, outcome-based measurement framework.

Ideal Candidate Qualities

The candidate is required to meet the below requirements:

• 15+ years of professional experience working with employer health care benefits, either in health and benefits consulting and/or in a client- or consultant-facing role within a health care solution/vendor.
• Strong management experience with the demonstrated ability to build, mentor and lead a high performing team, and to foster a culture of continuous improvement, professional development, and accountability.
• Deep relationships and credibility across one or more of the top consulting/brokerage firms, ideally from having already done a CR-type, consultant-facing role (not solely a background in consulting itself) — our experience is that this profile builds a network and sales instinct that a straight consulting-to-CR conversion often lacks.
• Experience designing or operating a named-account or portfolio-ownership model — with clear accountability per account or territory — in a relationship-management or sales function.
• Ability to influence client and consultant points of view and decisions with a thoughtful, data-driven perspective, supported by real-life experience.
• Experience in consultative sales or business development.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to confidently convey complex information and messages to a broad and diverse audience, both internal and external.
• Clear understanding of the mechanics of self-funded medical plans and the relationships between health plans/third party administrators, health care providers, and plan sponsors.
• Effective interpersonal skills with the ability to work independently and within a team environment, both externally facing and behind the scenes.
• Comfortable working in a high-growth, fast-changing environment; organized, adaptable, diligent, and self-motivated.
• Passion for Lantern's mission and collaborating with others.
• Bachelor's degree required.

Preferred qualifications include:

• 5-10 years as a health and benefits consultant within one of the top consulting/brokerage firms.
• Strong analytical skills, including experience working with medical claims data to project savings/program impact.
• Knowledge of the broader ecosystem of point solutions and health care disruptors selling to self-funded employers.
• Experience building outcome-based (rather than activity-based) performance metrics for a relationship-management or sales team.
• Ability to adopt a continuous improvement mindset and actively contribute to the processes and procedures of the larger Commercial team.
• Experience in an early / growth stage business.

 

Benefits

 

Compensation: Base salary range: $225k–$275k, depending on relevant experience, location, and qualifications.