Senior Director, Research & Development, Commercial Growth Initiatives

Vizient•Chicago, IL

2d•$135,200 - $236,600

About The Position

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.

Requirements

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.
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.
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.

Nice To Haves

Relevant degree preferred. MBA or equivalent graduate business training is a plus.
Prior experience evaluating early-stage ideas, new offerings, or investment cases before they enter formal build or delivery is a plus.
A track record of asking sharper questions, finding the weak assumption, and making the decision logic visible for senior leaders is a plus.

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.