Innovation Architect, Product Design

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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…