Senior Director, Research & Development, Commercial Growth Initiatives

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.
• 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.
• Experience 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.
• Comfort asking sharper questions, finding the weak assumption, and making the decision logic visible for senior leaders.
• 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.