Director- Clinical Trial Product Strategy (Optum Life Sciences)

Optum is a global organisation that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by diversity and inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health equity on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together. 

About the role:

In healthcare, evolution doesn’t just happen. It takes innovation, imagination, and a passion for solving problems in new and better ways. And innovation is taking place at a lightning-fast pace every day at Optum.

As the fastest growing part of the UnitedHealth Group family of businesses, we’re expanding our team in Ireland and creating excellent opportunities for those who want greater purpose and more impact in their work. We’ll provide the investment, support, and resources to advance your career. You’ll provide the talent, ambition, and drive.As part of the Optum Life Sciences Strategy team, the Senior Manager of Clinical Trials Product Strategy will be responsible for developing and managing Life Science’s clinical trials product strategy in collaboration with the VP of Strategy. In this role, you will proactively and reactively identify top areas of opportunity for current and new clinical trial products strategy for Life Sciences clients based on market trends and the competitive landscape. You will then apply strategic lenses to vet and prioritize opportunities in collaboration with the VP of Strategy to help scale Optum Life Sciences clinical trial offering into a novel and innovative end to end to solution in the space. For targeted improvements of current and new product opportunities, you will lead the work to develop the strategic concept working with a cross-functional team including Finance, Product, Operations, Technology, Marketing, and Sales. This work entails designing and building scalable clinical trial product strategies with robust economic models and clearly defined requirements that align with the portfolio vision for Optum Life Sciences.  

The candidate must have demonstrated business success and a proven track record of strong strategic planning, transformation, clinical trials expertise across preclinical, R&D, Phase 1-4 trials, decentralized clinical trials and new business and capability development leading to the creation of growth generating opportunities and sustainable, scalable solutions.

Careers with Optum offer flexible work arrangements and individuals who live and work in the Republic of Ireland will have the opportunity to split their monthly work hours between our Dublin or Letterkenny and telecommuting from a home-based office in a hybrid work model. 

Primary Responsibilities:

•    Serve as the product strategy lead for existing clinical trial products, including all functional aspects of concept development, in concert with subject matter experts
•    Serve as a market expert across all the different aspects of clinical trials from technologies, sites, CRO’s, SMO’s, Hybrid trials, etc. 
•    Develop and direct a strategic vision and roadmaps across all phases of clinical trials 
•    Able to navigate through technical requirements while simultaneously distilling and communicating complex subject matter to all stakeholders 
•    Collaborate with key stakeholders to develop requirements, prioritize features, and translate to the roadmap while seeking to understand the voice of the customer
•    Establishing a transformational new business vision, strategy, business case, priorities, plan, and executing the plan
•    Ensure that strategic, business, products, capabilities meet established short and long-range goals
•    Significantly contribute to innovation, continuous improvement, and other organizational enhancements
•    Support a strategic culture in collaboration with the VP of Strategy which embraces change, transformation, and new business opportunities and continuous improvement
•    Navigate and influence multiple cross-functional teams in a complex, matrix work environment
•    Influence innovation across teams to ensure aligned; cohesive progress across technology, marketing, and service operations

You will be rewarded and recognised for your performance in an environment that will challenge you and give you clear direction on what it takes to succeed in your role, as well as providing development for other roles you may be interested in.

Required Qualifications:

•    Proven experience in Clinical trial product/tech strategy, strategic planning for clinical trials products, or life science/clinical trials consulting.
•    Previous experience in health care – ideally life sciences and/or provider
•    Experience successfully navigating cross-functional teams
•    Proficiency in client and executive presentation
•    Experience with solution focused problem solving and thinking through problems creatively
•    Experience working with clients in a consultative role – comfort engaging senior level people in back-and-forth conversation, and ability to develop solid relationships through each interaction

Preferred Qualifications:

•    Experience with strategic product development of enterprise technology platforms
•    Proficiency of product agile delivery tools (Jira, Rally, Aha!)
•    Proven ability to effectively deal with levels of ambiguity – can effectively cope with change, can shift gears comfortably, can decide and act without having the total picture, comfortably handles risk and uncertainty

Please note you must currently be eligible to work without any restrictions in the country to which you are making an application. Proof will be required to support your application.

All telecommuters will be required to adhere to the UnitedHealth Group’s Telecommuter Policy.

At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone–of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location and income–deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalised groups and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes — an enterprise priority reflected in our mission. 

Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: Optum is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, disability, religion, age, race, and membership of the Traveller community, or any other characteristic protected by law. Optum is a drug-free workplace. © 2025 Optum Services (Ireland) Limited. All rights reserved

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