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Northwoods is seeking a CEO to lead its next chapter of growth as a trusted partner for county and state health and human services (HHS) agencies. For over 20 years, Northwoods has served state and county HHS agencies with a team including former caseworkers and social workers. Its Traverse platform supports approximately 45,000 caseworkers across child welfare, child support, economic assistance, and adult services. Grove pairs trained specialists with Traverse to remove administrative work from caseworkers' plates.
The market opportunity is significant: eligibility workloads are surging as federal SNAP funding shifts to states and Medicaid adds work requirements; child welfare modernization has stalled with fewer than one-third of state CCWIS projects operational; and the workforce is overwhelmed, requiring technology and AI that return time to caseworkers for decisions regarding people.
As CEO, you will have full P&L responsibility and accountability for Northwoods' financial performance, organizational health, and strategic execution. Key mandates include growing the county Traverse and Grove business, expanding into new HHS markets (including state agencies) with a scalable, productized approach, bringing AI into Traverse and Grove to measurably improve caseworker capacity, entering adjacent markets where Northwoods has a clear right to win, and building the capture, delivery, and partnership capabilities that statewide work requires.
Key responsibilities span strategy and growth (setting and executing multi-year strategy, prioritizing opportunities, keeping products scalable); government relationships (personally leading relationships with state HHS leaders and county directors, leading statewide capture from pre-RFP through award and negotiation, building partnerships across the HHS ecosystem, applying knowledge of federal funding and approval processes); product, technology, and AI (owning product strategy and roadmap, launching new products with clear adoption and revenue targets, using AI to increase caseworker and engineering productivity); delivery and operations (building a delivery organization for larger implementations, protecting service quality during expansion, running disciplined operating cadence); and leadership and culture (leading and developing the existing team, preserving mission-driven culture, modeling accountability and transparency).
Success looks like continued profitable growth of the county business, successful entry into new HHS markets including state level, AI capabilities that measurably expand caseworker capacity, sustained financial performance while investing in growth, and a strong, stable leadership team with bench strength for county and statewide growth.
As a Banyan CEO, you will lead with autonomy in a long-term ownership environment, join a trusted peer community of software CEOs, access optional operating resources without losing independence, and share meaningfully in value created through EBITDA growth and multiple expansion.
Location: Dublin, OH or remote (USA), with travel.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Must have owned a P&L as CEO, President, GM, or equivalent at a software business serving state or local government
- Must have built or scaled a business in the state and local HHS market and earned the trust of its leaders; must know the programs supported, stakeholders involved, policy environment, and how agencies buy and implement technology; must understand how relationships matter in this market; references from state and county agency leaders required
- Must have run two growth motions at once, investing in a long-cycle opportunity while continuing to grow and protect a faster-moving core business
- Must have launched a product and grown it; must be ready to share adoption, revenue, and margin results
PREFERRED EXPERIENCE:
- Captured and delivered a statewide HHS system (child welfare, child support, eligibility, adult services, or similar), or played a leading role in one, including federal funding and approval processes
- Entered an adjacent market with an existing product or platform
- Experience across multiple HHS programs and federal oversight agencies
- Working experience with federal funding strategies, modular modernization efforts, and state HHS procurement
- Leadership at a commercial HHS software vendor, not solely at a systems integrator
- Built AI-enabled products for regulated data
- Private equity, permanent-capital, or investor-owned environments
NOT A FIT IF:
- Growth record depends mainly on large custom implementations
- Prefer strategy work to customer meetings, deals, and hiring
- Need a large team in place before delivering results
- See growing the core business and pursuing new markets as a tradeoff rather than a shared priority
