MBA Summer Internship: Operations and Strategy

About the position

Ally Behavior is a full-time, center-based, early intervention Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy program, serving children with autism ranging from 18 months to 6 years of age. Our mission is to deliver the highest quality therapy to help our early learners reach their potential to communicate, improve social skills, and prepare for academic success. The children we serve are at the heart of everything we do and we are passionate about our commitment to having a meaningful impact in the lives of our children and their families. A ten week summer internship for MBA students who want to run businesses. It is the front door to our Chief of Staff (CXO) and Sandy Spring Operations Leadership Development Program (LDP) roles. Ally Behavior is a fast-growing autism therapy company, built around exceptional clinical quality and an unmatched family experience. We have grown at roughly 70% CAGR over the last four years and we are building toward our next chapter: 10x’ing our center footprint over the next five years. Scaling something this important requires more than plans; it requires leaders who can translate strategy into execution, build durable operating systems, and do the hard, unglamorous work to drive outcomes for kids and families. This company has been built by investing in high-potential people earlier in their career and giving them meaningful responsibility as the business scales. Many of our leaders have grown into their roles by taking ownership of hard problems, delivering impact, and earning expanded scope over time. This internship is how we start that relationship earlier. Overall, Ally Behavior is a dynamic, fun, and rewarding place to work that offers superior growth and leadership opportunities in a supportive, engaging environment. We have a unique and collaborative culture that is driven by our diverse team of professionals and our core values of Serving Others, Treatment Excellence, All One Ally, Resourceful in Finding Solutions, and Striving to Grow. We are looking for someone to help us provide the best possible service to our clients. We believe great companies are built from the ground up, and that is how we intend to build out our leadership team. We are not going to scale this business by buying our operators and executives on the open market. The talent does not exist at the volume we need, and even when it does it has been shaped by other companies with different standards. We need to build our own bench, and we would rather find and partner those people early. The program has two focuses. First, you learn the business from the inside through rotations across Ally’s business functions. Second, you own one project tied to a live business initiative, with a defined scope, an executive sponsor, and output we expect to make its way into production. This is not a watch from the sidelines internship. It is not a summer of shadowing that ends in a deck nobody uses. It is a role for someone with a do-whatever-is-necessary mindset. If the best way to win is to build the tracker, run the analysis, map the workflow, fix the handoff, sit with operators, draft the communications, and drive implementation, you will do that. Ally wants leaders who run toward the problems, not away. We hold MBA interns to a senior standard. You should expect to be treated like a contributor from the start, and to be given more than you think you can handle, supported through it, and expected to deliver.

Responsibilities

• Work with the Operations Managers to learn how centers operate.
• Shadow BCBAs and therapists.
• Coordinate with the back office teams for authorizations and compliance.
• Help build the schedule.
• Participate in rotations across corporate functions: Enrollment, Sales and Marketing, Talent Acquisition and HR, Insurance and Revenue Cycle, Clinical Quality, Finance, and Operations.
• Engage in structured learning on ABA, Speech, OT and Psychology service delivery, client outcomes, payor and authorization mechanics, clinical workflows, family experience, and unit economics.
• Participate in scoping sessions with your executive sponsor to sharpen your project into a clear problem, a set of owners, a timeline, and success metrics.
• Own one initiative end to end: do the analysis, build the thing, work with the operators who have to live with it, and drive it into use.
• Participate in weekly working sessions with your executive sponsor.
• Engage in regular time with the CEO and functional leaders.
• Move quickly with imperfect information while maintaining rigor and integrity.
• Escalate with a recommendation rather than a question.
• Participate in a midpoint review at roughly week 7.
• Present results to the CEO and the leadership team, including the recommendation, trade offs, numbers, and next steps.
• Hand off cleanly by documenting the process, creating a working dashboard, training an owner, or whatever is necessary for the work to keep running without you.
• Be considered for a return offer into the Chief of Staff (CXO) or Sandy Spring (LDP) roles.

Requirements

• Currently enrolled in a full-time MBA program and returning to school following the internship.
• 3+ years of pre-MBA experience in operations, consulting, banking, healthcare, military leadership, program leadership, or another high-growth operating environment, with a track record of measurable outcomes.
• Demonstrated leadership of people or projects with real stakes.
• Strong analytical ability.
• Fluency in Sheets and Excel.
• Comfort reading a P&L.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, and the ability to drive alignment across stakeholders who do not report to you.
• Willingness to be physically present in Tysons and in centers, and to travel.
• Must be able to pass federal, state, and county background checks.

Nice-to-haves

• Comfort with dashboards and BI tools.
• Experience in multi-site healthcare services, ABA, behavioral health, pediatrics, or adjacent fields.
• Familiarity with payor dynamics, authorizations, and revenue cycle.
• Prior ownership of a unit, team, store, branch, or other front line P&L.
• Experience with technology implementation, process automation, or service operations improvement.
• Experience supporting rapid expansion or building operating cadence such as OKRs and QBRs.
• A clear interest in an operating career after school. We are looking for people who want to run something, not people looking for one more rotation.

Benefits

• Internship compensation of \$2,300 to \$2,800 per week depending on experience.
• Housing and relocation stipend of \$5,000 for interns relocating to the DC metro area for the summer.
• Return offer consideration into the Chief of Staff (CXO) or Sandy Spring (LDP) roles, with a decision before you return to school.
• Company-sponsored DashPass.
• Paid company holidays that fall during the internship.
• Executive sponsorship, formal mentorship, and a structured curriculum on center operations, payor and revenue cycle mechanics, people leadership, financial management, and clinical quality.