The Director, Sales Experience Strategy & AI Innovation will establish and lead a Sales Innovation Studio focused on improving Agent, Broker, Telesales, Digital Acquisition, and Sales Operations experiences. This leader will partner across Sales, Product, Technology, Design, Research, Analytics, Compliance, and Enterprise AI to identify opportunities, rapidly prototype solutions, validate concepts, and enable responsible adoption of AI-powered capabilities.
The role serves as a bridge between business strategy and technology innovation, helping teams move from ideas to evidence, experimentation to execution, and isolated proofs of concept to reusable capabilities that deliver measurable business outcomes.
Strategic Mandate- Sales Experience Strategy: Set a forward-looking strategy that simplifies experiences for agents, brokers, telesales representatives, sales leaders, consumers, and operational partners
- AI Enablement & Workforce Transformation: Build practical AI fluency and embed AI-assisted ways of working into high-value sales and operating workflows
- Innovation Studio Leadership: Create a repeatable pathway from opportunity framing through prototype, validation, recommendation, and transition
- Emerging Technology & Partnerships: Evaluate technologies and partnerships that can improve growth, experience, productivity, quality, or speed
- Organizational Capability Building: Develop reusable playbooks, communities, assets, and governance that build lasting capability rather than dependency
This role is based in the Minnetonka, MN office.
Primary Responsibilities:- Sales Innovation & Transformation Leadership
- Establish and lead the Sales Innovation Studio, including its operating model, intake and prioritization approach, engagement model, service offerings, team development, governance, funding approach, and measures of success
- Partner with senior Sales & Distribution leaders to identify opportunities that improve agent productivity, consumer experience, sales effectiveness, operational efficiency, quality, and compliance
- Build and manage an innovation portfolio aligned to Sales & Distribution priorities, with transparent decisions on what should be explored, advanced, transitioned, paused, or stopped
- Serve as a strategic advisor on AI, emerging technologies, experience innovation, and future ways of working
- Communicate impact through executive-ready demonstrations, business cases, metrics, portfolio reviews, recommendations, and storytelling
- Rapid Prototyping, Research & Concept Validation
- Lead engagements that frame high-value business problems, surface critical assumptions, rapidly prototype ideas, and reduce uncertainty before significant investment
- Facilitate human-centered design, co-creation, Jobs-to-Be-Done, and lean experimentation activities with business teams and end users
- Leverage AI-assisted development, low-code capabilities, and modern prototyping methods to shorten idea-to-insight timelines
- Use agent, broker, consumer, employee, and stakeholder research to evaluate desirability, feasibility, usability, business value, and operational readiness
- Develop executive-ready prototypes, innovation briefs, evidence summaries, and investment recommendations
- Partner with Product, Technology, and business owners to prepare validated concepts for formal delivery and long-term ownership when appropriate
- AI Strategy, Enablement & Adoption
- Lead practical AI enablement across Sales & Distribution through workshops, coaching, office hours, innovation challenges, hackathons, and hands-on learning experiences
- Establish and grow a Sales AI Champion network that scales knowledge, responsible practices, and adoption across business teams
- Develop reusable playbooks, prompting frameworks, learning resources, use-case patterns, and operating guidance
- Coach leaders and teams on opportunities to apply AI to productivity, decision support, research, content, workflow simplification, knowledge access, coaching, and customer engagement
- Partner with Enterprise AI and technology teams to align sales-focused experimentation with enterprise platforms, standards, and governance
- Agent, Broker & Digital Sales Experience Innovation
- Identify opportunities to simplify how agents and brokers learn, sell, support consumers, manage their business, and interact with UHC
- Partner with product and technology teams to modernize digital shopping, agent portals, CRM and selling workflows, knowledge systems, communications, onboarding, training, and sales support experiences
- Explore AI-enabled coaching, guidance, knowledge retrieval, next-best-action recommendations, workflow automation, personalization, and proactive communications
- Promote connected experiences across digital, telesales, field, broker, and support channels while recognizing the distinct needs of each channel
- Advocate for solutions that reduce administrative burden and allow sales professionals to spend more time on high-value consumer and partner conversations
- Business Tools & Reusable Capabilities
- Enable business teams to create lightweight internal productivity tools through build, co-build, coaching, or reusable solution patterns
- Establish guardrails that distinguish prototypes and lightweight business tools from enterprise products requiring formal engineering and product ownership
- Create and maintain a reusable library of components, templates, automations, accelerators, and internal tools that reduce duplication
- Enable long-term business ownership through documentation, training, knowledge transfer, support models, and designated business champions
- Monitor adoption, usefulness, risk, and lifecycle decisions for Studio-enabled tools
- Cross-Functional Partnership, Governance & Risk
- Partner across Product, Engineering, Design, Research, Analytics, Sales Operations, Enterprise AI, Legal, Compliance, Privacy, Security, Accessibility, Finance, and Procurement
- Build relationships with external technology providers, research partners, startups, and strategic partners when they can accelerate learning or business value
- Ensure Studio activities align with Responsible AI principles and applicable regulatory, privacy, security, legal, compliance, records, and accessibility requirements
- Embed human oversight, transparent decisioning, validation, and escalation pathways into AI-enabled concepts where appropriate
- Create clear transition criteria so validated concepts move to the right product, technology, or business owner for scaling and sustained operation
Measures of SuccessOutcome Area - Illustrative Measures
- Business value - Validated opportunities that influence prioritization, investment, productivity, experience, sales effectiveness, quality, or cost outcomes
- Speed to evidence - Reduced time from idea intake to prototype, user feedback, recommendation, or disposition
- Adoption & capability - Growth in practical AI use, participation in enablement programs, active champions, and repeatable team practices
- Portfolio quality - Clear prioritization, fewer duplicative efforts, solider business cases, and transparent transition or stop decisions
- Experience impact - Improved usability, confidence, knowledge access, workflow simplicity, and satisfaction for agents, brokers, employees, or consumers
- Responsible scale - Demonstrated alignment with enterprise governance, human oversight, security, privacy, compliance, and accessibility expectations
- Reuse & sustainability - Reusable assets adopted across teams and clear long-term ownership for tools and capabilities
You9ll be rewarded and recognized for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role as well as provide development for other roles you may be interested in.
Required Qualifications:- Bachelor9s degree or equivalent practical experience
- 8+ years of experience in product management, innovation, digital transformation, strategy, consulting, organizational enablement, sales technology, or related leadership roles
- Experience leading rapid prototyping, concept validation, discovery, facilitation, research, or innovation initiatives
- Demonstrated experience leading cross-functional teams, portfolios, or organizational capabilities within a large, complex, matrixed organization
- Solid working knowledge of modern AI capabilities, AI-assisted ways of working, and responsible adoption practices
- Proven ability to influence senior leaders, frame strategic decisions, and drive alignment without direct authority
- Proven exceptional executive communication, facilitation, presentation, business-case development, and storytelling skills
- Demonstrated ability to coach leaders and teams while building scalable organizational capability
- Demonstrated ability to balance speed, creativity, business value, user needs, operational realities, and risk
Preferred Qualifications:- Experience in healthcare, Medicare, insurance, financial services, or another highly regulated industry
- Experience supporting sales, distribution, digital acquisition, contact center, broker, field, or sales operations organizations
- Experience establishing or leading an innovation studio, enablement function, internal consultancy, lab, center of excellence, or emerging technology capability
- Experience applying AI to sales enablement, agent experience, knowledge management, coaching, workflow automation, analytics, digital shopping, or customer engagement
- Experience with human-centered design, Jobs-to-Be-Done, lean experimentation, research, and modern product development
- Experience building lightweight internal tools using AI-assisted, low-code, or no-code platforms
- Experience designing and facilitating workshops, hackathons, coaching programs, innovation sprints, or communities of practice
- Experience evaluating vendors and developing internal or external partnerships that accelerate learning and outcomes
- Familiarity with Microsoft Copilot, Azure AI, agent-based architectures, rapid prototyping ecosystems, and enterprise governance patterns
Leadership Profile- Strategic innovator who connects market, business, user, and technology signals
- Product thinker who turns ambiguity into testable opportunities and clear decisions
- Organizational builder who creates repeatable capabilities, talent, and operating discipline
- Change leader who makes AI practical, approachable, responsible, and outcome oriented
- Trusted partner who builds credibility across business, technology, design, operations, and risk functions
- Executive storyteller who can translate complex ideas into compelling choices and action
*All employees working remotely will be required to adhere to UnitedHealth Group9s Telecommuter Policy
Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to local labor markets, education, work experience, certifications, etc. In addition to your salary, we offer benefits such as, a comprehensive benefits package, incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). No matter where or when you begin a career with us, you9ll find a far-reaching choice of benefits and incentives. The salary for this role will range from $134,600 - $230,800 annually based on full-time employment. We comply with all minimum wage laws as applicable.
Application Deadline: This will be posted for a minimum of 2 business days or until a sufficient candidate pool has been collected. Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.
