AI Strategy & Innovation Lead — Life Sciences

UnitedHealth Group; Eden Prairie (MN); Remote; USD 113,000 - 193,000; Full time

Job summary

UnitedHealth Group seeks a Senior Manager, AI Innovation and Strategy — Life Sciences to lead complex AI engagements for pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical technology clients. You will be the day-to-day client contact, align stakeholders, and translate priorities into practical plans across discovery to delivery.

The role requires deep life sciences knowledge, proven leadership of multidisciplinary teams, and experience in AI/ML, cloud, and data architectures.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in management consulting, technology transformation, analytics, or AI-enabled solution delivery.
• 5+ years of experience working directly with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical technology, or related life sciences organizations.
• 3+ years of experience with a management consulting firm (e.g., McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte, Accenture Strategy, or equivalent), including responsibility for leading client engagements and delivering executive-level recommendations.
• 3+ years of experience independently leading complex, multidisciplinary client engagements from initial discovery through full implementation and value realization.
• 3+ years of experience structuring complex scientific, operational, or technical problems into actionable strategic roadmaps and solution designs.
• 3+ years of practical experience involved in AI/ML solution delivery, model operations, cloud platforms, data architecture, or productization lifecycles.
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 30-40% to client locations as business needs require.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex AI strategy and solution-delivery engagements for life sciences clients from discovery through implementation and value realization.
• Serve as the primary day-to-day client contact and trusted advisor, aligning stakeholders and translating priorities into actionable strategies and delivery plans.
• Apply life sciences domain knowledge across R&D, clinical development, clinical operations, medical affairs, pharmacovigilance, regulatory operations, manufacturing, quality, market access, and commercial functions.
• Translate complex scientific, operational, data, technical, and regulatory requirements into solution designs and delivery plans.
• Develop and adapt innovative methods, accelerators, and solution-delivery approaches to address emerging client needs.
• Establish and manage engagement governance, success measures, workstreams, milestones, decision rights, risk controls, resource plans, and executive reporting.
• Provide cross-functional leadership, coaching, and direction to multidisciplinary teams.
• Guide teams in addressing data privacy, cybersecurity, model risk, validation, GxP, and responsible AI considerations throughout solution design and delivery.
• Convert successful engagement methods and client use cases into reusable offerings and reference architectures.

Skills

Client leadership

Stakeholder management

Problem solving

AI fluency

Cross-functional leadership

Travel readiness

Education

Advanced degree (Master's, Ph.D., PharmD, or MBA)

Tools

Cloud platforms

Data architecture

Productization lifecycles

Job description

UnitedHealth Group seeks a Senior Manager, AI Innovation and Strategy — Life Sciences to lead complex AI engagements for pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical technology clients. You will be the day-to-day client contact, align stakeholders, and translate priorities into practical plans across discovery to delivery.

The role requires deep life sciences knowledge, proven leadership of multidisciplinary teams, and experience in AI/ML, cloud, and data architectures.