Product Strategist, Consultant

Job Description

Your Role

The Product Strategy team is responsible for developing and executing impactful portfolio and product strategies that supports short and long term financial and membership growth across lines of business. The Product Strategist, Consultant will report to the Product Strategy Principal, leading product strategy for Self-Funded clients. In this role you will work closely across departments with product directors, managers and market leads to identify and build a long term profitable self-funded product strategy. The Product Strategist, Consultant will establish a multi-year, enterprise product roadmap, gain cross departmental support, foster adoption, and help operationalize new benefit structures through to market launch.

Responsibilities

Your Work

In this role, you will:

• Have an understanding of employer insurance customers: their needs, priorities, and buying preferences
• Identify market trends, customer needs, clinical innovation, and competitive opportunities to inform product strategy
• Develop a 1-3 year strategic vision to support development of additional programs and products to cross-sell and go to market approach
• Operate as an Agile Product Manager (certification preferred but not required), including writing user stories, prioritizing and managing product backlog, facilitating Agile ceremonies (e.g. Grooming, Sprint, Retrospective), ensuring the team is focused on delivering value
• Incorporate elements of human-centered design and design thinking into the design of health benefits to facilitate healthcare navigation
• Partner effectively with key stakeholders and leaders (Sales, Health Solutions, Digital Channels, Product Operations, etc.) in evolving a strategic vision for supplemental benefits
• Represent Blue Shield externally with vendors, utilize data to measure performance of vendors, and manage relationships according to contract and KPIs
• Intermediate to advanced data analysis including use of pivot tables, charts, data tables, sensitivity analysis, financial modeling, and charting
• Strive to effectively socialize strategic vision while gaining alignment and building consensus with senior leaders and key stakeholders
• Once strategic vision is adopted, coordinate workstreams and liaise with cross-functionals team (sales, operations, network, digital, customer experience) to deliver on overarching strategy
• Develop meaningful and practical metrics to assess overall impact and success of the product performance

Qualifications

Your Knowledge and Experience

• Requires a bachelor's degree; Master's degree in business (MBA), public health (MPH), or other health care field and/or equivalent experience strongly preferred
• Requires at least 7 years of prior relevant experience in product management and strategy, preferably combined with management consulting
• Requires ability to execute on product delivery timelines, within scope and budget
• Requires ability to assess potential opportunities, risks, and issues for their product area and make recommendations for improvement
• Intellectual curiosity to follow industry trends and innovations as well as developing thought leadership. Cultivate continuous improvement and agility
• Ability to effectively manage meetings and work regularly with a variety of senior stakeholders all the way up to C-Suite
• Advanced knowledge and mastery of Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel
• Advanced quantitative and analytical skills and proven ability to make data-driven decisions strongly preferred
• Experience gathering and evaluating external competitor information and insights strongly preferred

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About the Team

About Blue Shield of California

As of January 2025, Blue Shield of California became a subsidiary of Ascendiun. Ascendiun is a nonprofit corporate entity that is the parent to a family of organizations including Blue Shield of California and its subsidiary, Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan; Altais, a clinical services company; and Stellarus, a company designed to scale healthcare solutions. Together, these organizations are referred to as the Ascendiun Family of Companies.

At Blue Shield of California, our mission is to create a healthcare system worthy of our family and friends and sustainably affordable. We are transforming health care in a way that genuinely serves our nonprofit mission by lowering costs, improving quality, and enhancing the member and physician experience.

To achieve our mission, we foster an environment where all employees can thrive and contribute fully to address the needs of the various communities we serve. We are committed to creating and maintaining a supportive workplace that upholds our values and advances our goals.

Blue Shield is a U.S. News Best Company to work for, a Deloitte U.S. Best Managed Company and a Top 100 Inspiring Workplace. We were recognized by Fair360 as a Top Regional Company, and one of the 50 most community-minded companies in the United States by Points of Light. Here at Blue Shield, we strive to make a positive change across our industry and communities - join us!

Our Values:

• Honest. We hold ourselves to the highest ethical and integrity standards. We build trust by doing what we say we're going to do and by acknowledging and correcting where we fall short.
• Human. We strive to listen and communicate effectively, showing empathy by understanding others' perspectives.
• Courageous. We stand up for what we believe in and are committed to the hard work necessary to achieve our ambitious goals.

Our Workplace Model:

At Blue Shield of California and the Ascendiun Family of Companies, we believe in fostering a workplace environment that balances purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility. As we continue to evolve our workplace model, our focus remains on creating spaces where our people can connect with purpose - whether working in the office or through a hybrid approach - by providing clear expectations while respecting the diverse needs of our workforce.

Two Ways of Working:

• Hybrid (Default): Work from a business unit-approved office at least two (2) times per month (for roles below Director-level) or once per week (for Director-level roles and above).Exceptions:

o Member-facing and approved out-of-state roles remain remote.

o Employees living more than 50 miles from their assigned offices are expected to work with their managers on a plan for periodic office visits.

o For employees with medical conditions that may impact their ability to work in-office, we are committed to engaging in an interactive process and providing reasonable accommodations to ensure their work environment is conducive to their success and well-being.

• On-Site: Work from a business unit-approved office an average of four (4) or more days a week.

Physical Requirements:

Office Environment - roles involving part to full time schedule in Office Environment. Based in our physical offices and work from home office/deskwork - Activity level: Sedentary, frequency most of work day.

Please click here for further physical requirement detail.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

External hires must pass a background check/drug screen. Qualified applicants with arrest records and/or conviction records will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with Federal, State and local laws, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or disability status and any other classification protected by Federal, State and local laws.