Senior Consultant - Innovation

Acentra Health; Chennai District; On-site; INR 3,000,000 - 6,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Acentra Health is seeking an experienced professional to drive design thinking facilitation and enterprise-wide innovation initiatives in healthcare IT. You will lead ideation sessions, coach teams in human-centered design, and manage end-to-end innovation programs across the organization.

The role emphasizes cross-functional collaboration, execution of ideas from discovery to pilot, and measurement of ROI and business impact. Strong communication with business and technical teams is essential.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in healthcare IT, digital transformation, product innovation or consulting.
• Experience in payer, provider, care, population health or healthcare services environments preferred.
• Experience with a leading management consulting or professional services organization is strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate Design Thinking workshops to identify business, customer, operational, and technology challenges.
• Lead ideation sessions, innovation labs, and problem-solving workshops across functions.
• Coach teams on human-centered design, innovation methods, and creative problem-solving.
• Develop and maintain innovation frameworks, toolkits, templates, and best practices.
• Support business teams in identifying, refining, and validating innovation opportunities.

Skills

Design Thinking & Facilitation

Innovation Program Management

Hackathon Leadership

Idea Incubation & Execution

Stakeholder Management

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Change Enablement

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Healthcare / Engineering / Technology / Business

Tools

AI & Automation Technologies

Innovation Platforms

PoC & Pilot Management

Job description

Job Summary And Responsibilities

• Facilitate Design Thinking workshops to identify business, customer, operational, and technology challenges.
• Lead ideation sessions, innovation labs, and problem-solving workshops across functions.
• Coach teams on human-centered design, innovation methods, and creative problem-solving.
• Develop and maintain innovation frameworks, toolkits, templates, and best practices.
• Support business teams in identifying, refining, and validating innovation opportunities.

Design Thinking & Innovation Facilitation (30%)

• Facilitate Design Thinking workshops to identify business, customer, operational, and technology challenges.
• Lead ideation sessions, innovation labs, and problem-solving workshops across functions.
• Coach teams on human-centered design, innovation methods, and creative problem-solving.
• Develop and maintain innovation frameworks, toolkits, templates, and best practices.
• Support business teams in identifying, refining, and validating innovation opportunities.

Innovation Programs & Hackathons (30%)

• Plan and manage enterprise-wide innovation programs, campaigns, ideathons, and hackathons.
• Lead internal innovation challenges that encourage employee participation and idea generation.
• Coordinate external hackathons with technology partners, startups, universities, and industry organizations.
• Manage end-to-end logistics, communications, judging processes, mentoring, and outcome tracking.
• Establish innovation communities and champion networks across the organization.

Idea Incubation & Solution Implementation (25%)

• Manage the innovation intake process and evaluate ideas against defined criteria.
• Drive selected ideas through discovery, prototyping, proof of concept, pilot, and implementation phases.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams to develop and deliver innovation solutions.
• Track progress, risks, dependencies, and business outcomes for innovation initiatives.
• Support solution adoption and transition into business operations.
• Maintain innovation portfolio dashboards
• Measure ROI, productivity and customer impact

Innovation Ecosystem & Emerging Technology Enablement (10%)

• Identify relevant technology trends, tools, vendors, and startup solutions.
• Coordinate collaboration opportunities with external innovation partners.
• Support evaluation and experimentation with emerging technologies including AI, automation, analytics, and digital health capabilities.

Communication, Reporting & Culture Building (5%)

• Develop innovation success stories, communications, and engagement materials.
• Track participation, implementation rates, and business impact metrics.

Present program updates and innovation outcomes to business leaders and stakeholders.

Education And Experience

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Healthcare, Engineering, Technology, Business or related field
• 8+ years of experience in healthcare IT, digital transformation, product innovation or consulting
• Experience in payer, provider, care, population health or healthcare services environments preferred
• Experience with a leading management consulting or professional services organization is strongly preferred.

Core Competencies

• Design Thinking & Facilitation
• Innovation Program Management
• Hackathon & Ideathon Leadership
• Idea Incubation & Execution
• Stakeholder Management
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Change Enablement

Technical Expertise

• Human-Centered Design
• Agile & Lean Practices
• AI & Automation Technologies
• Innovation Platforms
• PoC & Pilot Management
• Data-Driven Decision Making
• Innovation Reporting & Metrics

Additional Qualifications

• Experience in healthcare, regulated industries, or shared services environments is desirable.
• Strong collaboration skills, and experience scaling innovation programs is preferred.

Strong communication skills and comfort working with both business and technical teams.