Innovation Architect, Product Design

Company:Mercer

Description:

The Innovation Architect – Product Design role is responsible for transforming raw innovation ideas into well-defined, investable opportunities that advance Mercer Health's goal of market leadership in digital and AI solutions. This role sits within the Health Innovation Studio and works collaboratively alongside a team of Innovation Architects — bringing product thinking, human-centered design, and AI-enabled process reimagination to the innovation intake process. By bringing structure, rigor, and strategic framing to the work, this individual helps ensure the organization is solving the right problems in the right order, with a clear path from concept to prioritized opportunity.

Secondarily, this individual will also support thought leadership initiatives led by the Innovation Studio, strengthening our position as an innovation leader by translating market intelligence, competitive insights, and employer research into compelling points of view and external engagements for our clients.

We will count on you to:

Innovation Intake & Idea Development

• Work alongside fellow Innovation Architects as a key point of contact for innovation idea submitters, guiding them through structured refinement and discovery processes.

• Facilitate workshops and working sessions to surface the root problem behind a submitted idea, challenging assumptions and reframing solutions where needed.

• Translate ambiguous concepts into clearly scoped problem statements, opportunity briefs, and solution hypotheses.

• Support the end-to-end intake pipeline, ensuring ideas are captured, categorized, and progressed with appropriate rigor and momentum.

Product Strategy & Problem Definition

• Apply a product mindset to evaluate ideas against user needs, market opportunity, strategic fit, and feasibility.

• Define and articulate the problem being solved — not just the solution being proposed — to ensure innovation investments are grounded in real business or client pain points.

• Partner with business stakeholders to validate demand, identify affected workflows, and pressure-test proposed solutions.

• Develop and apply frameworks for evaluating idea maturity, readiness for investment, and alignment to strategic priorities.

AI & Process Reimagination

• Reimagine existing processes from the ground up by exploring how humans and AI can work together in fundamentally new ways — not just automating the current state.

• Identify high-leverage opportunities where AI can reshape workflows, eliminate friction, or create new value for clients and consultants.

Prioritization & Innovation Council Support

• Prepare ideas for review by the Innovation Council with clear, decision-ready documentation and framing.

• Support willingness-to-pay analysis and value quantification to inform prioritization decisions.

• Partner with the Innovation Studio Lead and Innovation Council to apply consistent prioritization criteria and advance the highest-impact opportunities.

• Partner with appropriate parties to develop preliminary business cases to support go/no-go decisions, including value hypothesis, target users, anticipated benefits, risks, and directional sizing.

End to End Innovation Facilitation

• Own the day-to-day project management while facilitating concepts through the innovation cycle in strong partnership with business, design, product, and technical leaders.

• Coordinate desirability, feasibility, and viability validation activities, ensuring appropriate rigor at each stage.

• Run the operating cadence for each concept — including kickoffs, working sessions, stakeholder check-ins, and stage-gate reviews — with clear agendas, notes, action items, and decision capture.

• Track progress and manage risks and issues (blockers, resourcing gaps, decision delays, scope creep), escalating proactively to maintain momentum and clarity.

• Ensure stage-gate readiness by confirming required evidence and artifacts are completed to standard at each stage.

• Maintain portfolio visibility across in-flight concepts by reporting status, timelines, upcoming gates, risks, and support needs to the Innovation Lead and governance stakeholders.

• Drive timely progression and closure by enforcing timeboxes, aligning stakeholders on next steps, and ensuring concepts either advance with clear ownership or are paused/closed with documented rationale.

Innovation Process Excellence

• Contribute to the continuous improvement of the end to end innovation process, identifying friction points and helping evolve the operating model as the program matures.

• Build and refine shared tools including templates, facilitation guides, and evaluation rubrics.

• Champion a culture of disciplined innovation — balancing creative thinking with strategic rigor and business accountability.

Thought Leadership & External Engagement

• Translate market intelligence, competitive insights, and employer research into compelling, differentiated points of view that strengthen Mercer Health's position as an innovation leader.

• Develop and contribute to a range of thought leadership deliverables, including POVs, blogs, articles, and newsletters that articulate Mercer Health's perspective on innovation and trends in health and benefits.

• Support advisory and governance forums by synthesizing innovation trends, client insights, and internal learnings into materials that drive meaningful dialogue and external credibility.

• Contribute to the planning and execution of client-facing events and engagements, translating innovation work into compelling market narratives and experiences.

• Partner with subject matter experts to produce thought leadership assets and ensure outputs are grounded in real innovation activity, client problems, and emerging market signals.

• Serve as a thought partner to business leaders on what is now possible with AI, helping translate emerging capabilities into practical application.

What you need to have:

• 5+ years of experience in product management, product strategy, management consulting, or innovation program management.

• Experience in the healthcare industry.

• Background in digital transformation, AI product development, or enterprise technology strategy.

• Demonstrated ability to facilitate workshops and working sessions that drive alignment and clarity across diverse stakeholder groups.

• Strong problem definition and structured thinking skills — able to move from a vague idea to a well-scoped opportunity brief.

• Familiarity with AI capabilities and a working understanding of how AI can reshape business processes and workflows.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex ideas for both executive and operational audiences.

• Ability to manage multiple ideas and workstreams simultaneously in a fast-moving environment.

What makes you stand out:

• Experience in employee benefits consulting, or professional services consulting environments.

• Experience with design thinking, jobs-to-be-done, or other human-centered innovation methodologies.

• Experience developing business cases, including value quantification, cost-benefit analysis, and investment prioritization.

• Experience working within or alongside an innovation council, portfolio governance, or investment committee process.

• Familiarity with willingness-to-pay research methodologies and market sizing techniques.

Why join our team:

• We help you be your best through professional development opportunities, interesting work and supportive leaders.

• We foster a vibrant and inclusive culture where you can work with talented colleagues to create new solutions and have impact for colleagues, clients and communities.

• Our scale enables us to provide a range of career opportunities, as well as benefits and rewards to enhance your well-being.

Mercer is a business of Marsh (NYSE: MRSH), a global leader in risk, reinsurance and capital, people and investments, and management consulting, advising clients in 130 countries. With annual revenue of over $27 billion and more than 95,000 colleagues, Marsh helps build the confidence to thrive through the power of perspective. For more information about Mercer, visit mercer.com, or follow us on LinkedIn and X.

Marsh is committed to embracing a diverse, inclusive and flexible work environment. We aim to attract and retain the best people and embrace diversity of age background, disability, ethnic origin, family duties, gender orientation or expression, marital status, nationality, parental status, personal or social status, political affiliation, race, religion and beliefs, sex/gender, sexual orientation or expression, skin color, veteran status (including protected veterans), or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. If you have a need that requires accommodation, please let us know by contacting [email protected].

Marsh is committed to hybrid work, which includes the flexibility of working remotely and the collaboration, connections and professional development benefits of working together in the office. All Marsh colleagues are expected to be in their local office or working onsite with clients at least three days per week. Office-based teams will identify at least one “anchor day” per week on which their full team will be together in person.

The applicable base salary range for this role is $115,200 to $230,400.

The base pay offered will be determined on factors such as experience, skills, training, location, certifications, education, and any applicable minimum wage requirements. Decisions will be determined on a case-by-case basis. In addition to the base salary, this position may be eligible for performance-based incentives.

We are excited to offer a competitive total rewards package which includes health and welfare benefits, tuition assistance, 401K savings and other retirement programs as well as employee assistance programs.