Summary:

The Principal Designer, Product Design is the founding leader of the discovery and research function within MSO Technology Solutions, responsible for building the operating model that will define how the team understands, validates, and prioritizes problems across the MSO unified technology platform. This role applies deep expertise in human-centered research, Jobs-to-Be-Done discovery, service design, and outcome measurement to drive high-impact decisions across specialty healthcare organizations. 

Rather than starting with solutions, this leader starts with problems — translating complex clinical, operational, and business challenges into clear, evidence-based opportunities that inform the MSO platform roadmap, pilot investments, and build/buy/partner decisions. The Principal Designer partners closely with Product Management, Architecture, Engineering, Data & Analytics, Practice Leadership and Physicians to ensure that every major platform initiative is grounded in validated practice needs and tied to measurable outcomes. 

As the MSO Technology team matures its discovery capability, this leader will shape the methods, tools, frameworks, and team structure that make rigorous problem discovery a repeatable organizational strength. 

Responsibilities:

Discovery & Research Leadership 

• Build and lead the discovery and research operating model for MSO Technology Solutions, establishing the methods, tools, and practices that define how the team identifies and validates problems before pursuing solutions. 

• Lead Jobs-to-Be-Done discovery, stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, workflow analysis, and qualitative research with physicians, practice leaders, operational teams, and end users across specialty practices. 

• Facilitate collaborative workshops, strategy sessions, and service blueprinting engagements with practice leaders, senior leadership, and cross-functional partners. 

• Develop current-state and future-state service blueprints, journey maps, ecosystem maps, and experience frameworks that surface needs, dependencies, handoffs, pain points, and platform opportunities. 

• Synthesize qualitative and quantitative findings into clear, actionable insights and recommendations that directly inform the MSO unified technology platform roadmap and investment priorities. 

Product & Platform Strategy 

• Define experience and product strategies that align patient, provider, staff, business, and technology needs to MSO platform capabilities and gaps. 

• Translate ambiguous clinical, operational, and business challenges into scalable products, service, and workflow opportunities — always leading with the problem before the solution. 

• Evaluate tradeoffs across build, buy, partner, and pilot scenarios in partnership with product, architecture, engineering, and leadership teams. 

• Shape future-state platform experiences and product capabilities through human-centered design principles and evidence-based decision-making. 

Pilot Design, KPI Measurement & Value Realization 

• Establish baseline operational, financial, clinical, adoption, and experience metrics before pilots or transformation initiatives launch. 

• Define pilot hypotheses, KPI frameworks, success criteria, and leading and lagging indicators aligned to strategic objectives. 

• Partner with Data & Analytics to track KPI performance, adoption, utilization, and realized value over time. 

• Synthesize pilot results, workflow observations, and stakeholder feedback into leadership-ready readouts that support scale, optimize, continue, or stop decisions. 

Innovation & Emerging Technology 

• Identify opportunities for new products, automation, agentic workflows, and AI-enabled capabilities that improve specialty practice performance on the MSO platform. 

• Assess desirability, feasibility, viability, risk, and adoption readiness for emerging technologies and internally built capabilities. 

• Influence investment decisions by connecting practice problems, user needs, platform opportunities, technical options, and measurable value. 

Capability Building & Team Leadership 

• Serve as the functional leader of the discovery and research discipline within MSO Technology Solutions — establishing standards, frameworks, and operating practices that scale as the team grows. 

• Mentor designers and cross-functional partners; contribute to future design team structure, talent planning, and career development within the Product Design discipline. 

• Communicate design positions, risks, tradeoffs, and strategic recommendations to senior leaders and external partners with clarity and confidence. 

Qualifications:

Required 

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Human-Centered Design, Service Design, Business, Healthcare Administration, or a related field; equivalent experience considered. 

• 8+ years of experience in Product Design, UX Strategy, Service Design, Experience Research, Product Strategy, or a closely related discipline. 

• Demonstrated expertise in human-centered research, Jobs-to-Be-Done discovery, service design, and facilitation of complex, senior stakeholder groups. 

• Experience defining KPIs, measurement frameworks, and outcome evaluation approaches for pilots, products, or transformation initiatives. 

• Ability to synthesize complex qualitative and quantitative data into executive-level insights, recommendations, and decision support materials. 

• Strong communication, storytelling, workshop facilitation, systems thinking, and executive presentation skills. 

Preferred 

• Experience in healthcare, specialty physician practices, management services organizations, healthcare technology, or operational transformation. 

• Experience evaluating AI-enabled solutions, automation capabilities, vendor solutions, or emerging technology pilots. 

• Experience building or leading a research or discovery function, including mentoring practitioners and contributing to standards and governance. 

What Cencora offers

We provide compensation, benefits, and resources that enable a highly inclusive culture and support our team members’ ability to live with purpose every day. In addition to traditional offerings like medical, dental, and vision care, we also provide a comprehensive suite of benefits that focus on the physical, emotional, financial, and social aspects of wellness. This encompasses support for working families, which may include backup dependent care, adoption assistance, infertility coverage, family building support, behavioral health solutions, paid parental leave, and paid caregiver leave. To encourage your personal growth, we also offer a variety of training programs, professional development resources, and opportunities to participate in mentorship programs, employee resource groups, volunteer activities, and much more. For details, visit https://www.virtualfairhub.com/cencora

*This Salary Range reflects a National Average for this job. The actual range may vary based on your locale. Ranges in Colorado/California/Washington/New York/Hawaii/Vermont/Minnesota/Massachusetts/Illinois State-specific locations may be up to 10% lower than the minimum salary range, and 12% higher than the maximum salary range.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Cencora is committed to providing equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or membership in any other class protected by federal, state or local law.

The company’s continued success depends on the full and effective utilization of qualified individuals. Therefore, harassment is prohibited and all matters related to recruiting, training, compensation, benefits, promotions and transfers comply with equal opportunity principles and are non-discriminatory.

Cencora is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the employment process which are consistent with legal requirements. If you wish to request an accommodation while seeking employment, please call 888.692.2272 or email hrsc@cencora.com. We will make accommodation determinations on a request-by-request basis. Messages and emails regarding anything other than accommodations requests will not be returned

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