Agile Product Owner Director, AI & ML – Evernorth Pharmacy - Hybrid

The role is responsible for setting the strategy and execution plan for AI/ML technology for the Evernorth Pharmacy.  This role will be responsible for leading and overseeing the value delivery of the product portfolio and evaluating market competitiveness/ adoption strategies for emerging AI/ML capabilities. 

This role will partner with our pharmacy operations, finance and product teams to go from ideation to business case development, prioritization, portfolio funding, business readiness, technology execution and ultimately – value realization. This role will also have strong engagement with our broader enterprise AI COE, adjacent AI technology and product teams in Cigna, Evernorth PBS, etc. for feedback, collaboration, and alignment. 

Duties and Responsibilities

• As the Product Owner Director you are accountable for value delivery - own the roadmap for core AI products for Evernorth Pharmacy, balancing technical tradeoffs with customer value. You’ll prioritize relentlessly against business value, define clear success metrics, and ensure capabilities are delivered with quality and speed.

• Lead and oversee AI product innovation - Bridge technical, business, product and operational partners communicating complex technical concepts to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders, ensuring alignment from leadership to frontline users.

• Partner with the Pharmacy Operations and Product teams - deeply understand workflows, challenges, revenue generation, and business needs —translating this into strategy and execution in our solutions. Working with the team you will demo products, gather feedback, and ensure we’re building what truly generates the highest value for the pharmacy.

• Cross Functional Leadership – steer collaboration between various internal/external stakeholders (e.g. Accredo, Express Scripts, Curascript,Freedom, MD Live and other pharmacy subsidiaries) Interact with and influence internal stakeholders at all levels of the company. Partner with Pharmacy senior leaders across the organization to shape strategy, develop short and long-term visions and roadmaps, and work with leaders to move from strategy to execution.

• Lead ideation, hypothesis evaluation, and capability/value delivery - for product strategies leveraging AI technologies across Evernorth Pharmacy. 

• Market Analysis and Competitiveness - maintain a pulse on the external market dynamics including customer and competitor insights and AI technology trends to ensure the team’s strategic framework continues to be market leading in a dynamic, changing and ever evolving AI landscape

• Partner with peers and vendors to evaluate effective tools to increase efficiency and better business outcomes, formulating opinions on where and why these tools will be effective, while formulating adoption strategies.

• Oversee and steer the product development process - ensuring compliance with budget, scope, forecasted value, and initiative delivery timelines.

• Lead and develop the product owner team - working on identifying core competency development to be prioritized, maintaining a development plan to ensure progress is reviewed and measured.  Foster a collaborative and high-performing work environment.

• Collaborate with the product team to uncover business needs - design targeted experiments, and validate potential solutions or features, ensuring we deliver exceptional value to our customers and stakeholders while overseeing the market and competitive analysis of our product.

• Responsible for leading Rapid Prototyping - Alleviation of end use pain points and increase in quality of life through side by side observations and rapid delivery of minor to major enhancements.

• Product Performance and Value - Monitor and communicate product performance by championing product quality, establishing and communicating product KPI dashboard and resolving critical product performance issues while sharing/socializing value delivery with cross functional partners. 

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related technical field, with a Master's degree / MBA being a valuable asset. Advanced degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or related field is highly desirable.

• 5+ years of experience in a product leadership role such as product management, project management, or project lead, highlighting your ability to guide and inspire teams.

• Demonstrated understanding of the Pharmacy/ Healthcare and artificial intelligence, machine learning, and related technologies.

• Demonstrated core competencies in Machine Learning & AI Frameworks with an understanding of ML algorithms, neural networks, NLP, computer vision, and generative AI.

• Demonstrated experience with hands on AI development projects and leading technical teams that have delivered AI solutions is a major plus

• Demonstrated strong grasp of data engineering, data pipeline, data science and analytics.

• Exhibit exceptional communication skills, adept at articulating complex concepts in written and verbal forms and engaging with diverse audiences.

• Possess a keen interest in honing your leadership skills, striving for continuous growth and development.

• Familiarity with agile development methodologies, showcasing your adaptability and commitment to embracing agile philosophies in a lean product development environment.

• Strong presentation and communication skills with ability to interact with executives, senior managers, technical experts and customers.

• Effective people leader that has experience coaching, mentoring and developing top talent.

• Solid financial acumen, with ability to evaluate solutions and understand impacts to other areas quickly and effectively.

• Experience with cross-functional initiatives, with a high degree of complexity.

• Willingness to travel and engage with our end users in order to deeply understand our processes and solutions to pain points.

• Demonstrates ability to lead, influence and problem-solve across various Cigna and Evernorth businesses.

• Strong modeling capability and financial management skills.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

• Strategic acumen to drive organization success in a changing landscape.

• Able to manage multiple priorities and deal with ambiguity.

If you will be working at home occasionally or permanently, the internet connection must be obtained through a cable broadband or fiber optic internet service provider with speeds of at least 10Mbps download/5Mbps upload.

For this position, we anticipate offering an annual salary of 153,500 - 255,800 USD / yearly, depending on relevant factors, including experience and geographic location.

This role is also anticipated to be eligible to participate in an annual bonus and long term incentive plan.

We want you to be healthy, balanced, and feel secure. That’s why you’ll enjoy a comprehensive range of benefits, with a focus on supporting your whole health. Starting on day one of your employment, you’ll be offered several health-related benefits including medical, vision, dental, and well-being and behavioral health programs. We also offer 401(k) with company match, company paid life insurance, tuition reimbursement, a minimum of 18 days of paid time off per year and paid holidays. For more details on our employee benefits programs, visit Life at Cigna.

About Evernorth Health Services

Evernorth Health Services, a division of The Cigna Group, creates pharmacy, care and benefit solutions to improve health and increase vitality. We relentlessly innovate to make the prediction, prevention and treatment of illness and disease more accessible to millions of people. Join us in driving growth and improving lives.

Qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, age, disability, sex, childbirth (including pregnancy) or related medical conditions including but not limited to lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, religion, national origin, ancestry, marital or familial status, genetic information, status with regard to public assistance, citizenship status or any other characteristic protected by applicable equal employment opportunity laws.

If you require reasonable accommodation in completing the online application process, please email: SeeYourself@cigna.com for support. Do not email SeeYourself@cigna.com for an update on your application or to provide your resume as you will not receive a response.

Cigna has a tobacco-free policy and reserves the right not to hire tobacco/nicotine users in states where that is legally permissible. Candidates in such states who use tobacco/nicotine will not be considered for employment unless they enter a qualifying smoking cessation program prior to the start of their employment. These states include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Washington State.

Qualified applicants with criminal histories will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with all federal, state and local ordinances.