Senior Director, Research & Development, Commercial Growth Initiatives

Vizient, Inc.

$135K — $236K *
Healthcare
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Relevant degree preferred; MBA or equivalent is a plus.
  • 10+ years of experience in relevant fields required.
  • Background in management consulting, venture analysis, or health system operations strongly desired.
  • Strong healthcare fluency from various provider or consulting roles needed.
  • Experience leading complex, ambiguous projects as an individual contributor.
  • Comfortable translating market and customer insights into executive recommendations.
  • Ability to navigate between customer needs, market realities, and strategic goals.

Responsibilities

  • Lead growth initiatives by analyzing and understanding healthcare problems.
  • Shape early-stage product and business strategies based on market dynamics.
  • Provide market insights to validate early-stage ideas and concepts.
  • Facilitate high-level discussions with internal and external stakeholders.
  • Build evidence-based convictions for pursuing or shelving opportunities.
  • Identify risks and assumptions impacting decision-making processes.
  • Document thorough evidence and stakeholder feedback for transparent recommendations.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive benefits plan including health and wellness programs.
  • Incentives and bonuses based on performance.
  • Opportunity for professional development and career advancement.
  • Collaborative and innovative work environment.
  • Flexibility for remote work and work-life balance enhancements.
Full Job Description
Summary:

The Commercial Growth Initiatives (CGI) team sits within Vizient's Research & Development (R&D) group and leads upstream innovation and product strategy: identifying, shaping, and de-risking new growth opportunities that help healthcare organizations solve complex, high-impact problems. We connect unmet healthcare needs with Vizient's distinctive assets, shaping credible solution concepts and determining which opportunities are strong enough for R&D to pursue.

We're looking for a senior individual contributor to lead innovation and product strategy for early-stage opportunities, determining whether an emerging problem is real, valuable, fundable, strategically credible, and capable of becoming a strong growth opportunity for Vizient. This is not a product management, implementation, or program delivery role. It is upstream strategy work that combines healthcare judgment, structured analysis, customer discovery, market assessment, and executive-ready synthesis to help Vizient R&D decide what to pursue further.

Reporting to the VP of Commercial Growth Initiatives, you'll work at the point where unmet healthcare needs, market signals, and Vizient's unique assets come together to shape what R&D pursues next. This is a high-leverage role for someone who wants to influence early strategy, build conviction through evidence, and help define a pipeline of opportunities that solve important healthcare problems and expand where Vizient can create durable value.

Responsibilities:
  • Lead early-stage growth work by deeply understanding healthcare problems and shaping solutions that take advantage of Vizient's unique assets, relationships, data, and market position.
  • Shape early product and business theses by connecting customer pain, market dynamics, operational reality, economic value, and Vizient's strategic position.
  • Bring an external market perspective to early-stage ideas, including how health systems make decisions, what buyers value, where budgets may sit, and how alternatives compete.
  • Lead senior-level conversations with internal stakeholders, health system leaders, operators, subject matter experts, and external market participants.
  • Build conviction around whether an opportunity is meaningful, fundable, differentiated, and credible enough to pursue.
  • Identify the critical assumptions, risks, and decision points that should determine whether an opportunity advances, changes direction, or stops.
  • Translate research, interviews, market analysis, and internal expertise into concise executive recommendations.
  • Create meticulous documentation of evidence, assumptions, stakeholder input, decisions, and open questions so recommendations can be reviewed, challenged, and handed off cleanly.
  • Influence cross-functional partners and senior stakeholders without relying on formal authority.
  • Help refine how the team evaluates, communicates, and prioritizes early-stage commercial growth opportunities as the function scales.


Qualifications:
  • Relevant degree preferred. MBA or equivalent graduate business training is a plus.
  • 10 or more years of experience required.
  • Background in management consulting, venture analysis, health system operations, or product and growth strategy, ideally in health tech or AdTech; deep experience in any of these fields with a healthcare focus is a plus.
  • Strong healthcare fluency, ideally from provider operations, healthcare consulting, health tech, payer/provider strategy, or healthcare analytics.
  • Experience leading complex, ambiguous work as an individual contributor, influencing senior stakeholders, and making sound recommendations with incomplete information.
  • Prior experience evaluating early-stage ideas, new offerings, or investment cases before they enter formal build or delivery is a plus.
  • Comfort moving between market research, customer discovery, economic logic, operational reality, and executive synthesis.
  • A customer-centered mindset and skill in translating messy inputs into clear problem statements, decision memos, and executive-ready materials.
  • Ability to tell a compelling problem from an interesting idea and explain what evidence would make an opportunity worth further investment.
  • A track record of asking sharper questions, finding the weak assumption, and making the decision logic visible for senior leaders is a plus.
  • Self-direction, initiative, and sound judgment in anticipating issues and keeping work moving without waiting for perfect direction.
  • Practical judgment, intellectual honesty, and a collaborative approach to navigating ambiguity and differing perspectives.
  • Willingness to travel.


Estimated Hiring Range:
At Vizient, we consider skills, experience, and organizational needs in our compensation approach. Geographic factors may adjust the range estimate and hires typically fall below the top range. Compensation decisions are tailored to individual circumstances. The current salary range for this role is $135,200.00 to $236,600.00.

This position is also incentive eligible.

Vizient has a comprehensive benefits plan! Please view our benefits here:

http://www.vizientinc.com/about-us/careers

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