Consultant, Vendor Strategy & Management - Group Health

Nationwide

1d • Remote

About The Position

The Consultant, Vendor Strategy & Management – Group Health owns the strategy, oversight, and performance of the vendor ecosystem that supports Nationwide’s Group Health (stop‑loss and self‑funded medical) business. This role organizes a complex vendor landscape, evaluates and implements new solutions, and uses data and strong relationships to ensure vendors deliver meaningful value for members, clients, and the business.

Our work is essential to helping Nationwide build future capabilities to serve customer needs. Keeping existing products relevant and marketable and building new products takes research, critical thinking, practicality, and collaboration. If you enjoy gathering input and information, working independently and on a team and creating innovative solutions for customers, we want to know more about you! As a Consultant, you'll lead the initiation, development, and maintenance of products with respect to design, profitability, and growth. We'll count on you to collect information and make recommendations regarding overall corporate objectives, field operations and staff services.

Requirements

• Experience in group health or group benefits, ideally stop‑loss or self‑funded medical.
• Demonstrated vendor management experience (selection, onboarding, performance/governance).
• Strong project/program management and organizational skills.
• Proven relationship and influencing skills with both vendors and internal partners.
• Comfort working with data and dashboards to interpret trends and recommend actions.
• Clear, concise verbal and written communication skills.
• Undergraduate degree in finance, economics, marketing, or related field preferred.
• Typically, eight years of relevant experience in a related industry.
• Demonstrated strategic decision making.
• Proficiency in the use of analytic tools, plans pricing and products.
• Ability to drive for results, navigate ambiguity and to understand strategic objectives.
• Ability to lead high profile projects.
• Ability to creatively present ideas in written form and through presentations.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills.
• Regularly and consistently demonstrates Nationwide Values.

Nice To Haves

• Exposure to BI/visualization tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau) and healthcare/benefits economics.
• Graduate degree desired.
• Industry designations (e.g., CPCU, ARM, CLU, FLMI, ChFC, CFP, NASD, etc.) preferred.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain a central vendor data hub for Group Health vendors (value‑add solutions and network partners), including contracts, pricing, guarantees, capabilities, and performance.
• Lead or support vendor selection and due diligence (RFI/RFP, evaluations, recommendations) and coordinate cross‑functionally on implementation and operational readiness.
• Serve as primary relationship manager for assigned vendors by establishing governance routines, monitoring SLAs and guarantees, and driving remediation or improvement plans.
• Partner with analytics to define and maintain vendor dashboards and reporting (engagement, utilization, outcomes, financial impact) and translate insights into clear recommendations.
• Collaborate with product, operations, marketing, actuarial, underwriting, and sales to ensure vendor solutions are integrated into offerings, easily implemented, and understood by internal and external stakeholders.
• Support member and client engagement by informing campaigns and communications that drive adoption and effective use of high‑value programs.
• Serves as a technical professional in the analysis of pricing and design features, product, and profitability.
• Actively finds opportunities for improvement and makes solution recommendations.
• Provides support and guidance related to product design and management.
• Provides high level, strategic input on key initiatives addressing product strategy and profitability objectives.
• Participates and may lead new business development and implementation projects.
• Works with Product Directors to predict needs and issues.
• Acts as a resource to Product Directors.
• Reacts appropriately to market conditions.
• Identifies and evaluates business opportunities.
• Partners with leadership to provide a regular assessment of financial results and recommendations to increase future profitability.
• Investigates and assists in development of new tools and technology to improve product performance.
• Reviews and analyzes highly technical and sophisticated market information on benchmark competitors.
• Identifies options to keep products market-competitive.
• May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Benefits

• medical/dental/vision
• life insurance
• short and long term disability coverage
• paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date
• nine paid holidays
• 8 hours of Lifetime paid time off
• 8 hours of Unity Day paid time off
• 401(k) with company match
• company-paid pension plan
• business casual attire

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level