Assoc. Dir , AI Lead Innovation Consultant

Job Description

Associate Director, AI Innovation Consultant 

The Opportunity 

Based in Rahway, New Jersey join a global healthcare biopharma company and be part of a 130-year legacy of success backed by ethical integrity, forward momentum, and an inspiring mission to achieve new milestones in global healthcare. Be part of an organization driven by digital technology and data-backed approaches that support a diversified portfolio of prescription medicines, vaccines, and animal health products. Drive innovation and execution excellence. Be a part of a team with a passion for using AI to drive decision-making, and which creates custom software, allowing us to tackle some of the world's greatest health threats. 

Role Overview: 

As an AI Innovation Consultant, you will serve as a Frontline Facilitator within the AI Innovation Studio, partnering closely with the AI Innovation Studio leads to deliver high-quality discovery and early-stage AI innovation engagements. In this role, you will help translate ambiguous business challenges into clearly defined, AI-ready opportunity statements that inform Opportunity Assessments and downstream PoC planning. 

This role is highly client-facing and discovery-oriented. You will contribute directly to workshop design and delivery, stakeholder interviews, journey mapping, and user research, producing structured outputs that enable alignment between business, AI, and delivery teams. While you will most often operate in partnership with Studio leads, you will also take ownership of specific discovery sessions, workstreams, or lower-complexity engagements as appropriate. 

What will you do in this role: 

Partner on Discovery & Client Engagements 

• Partner closely with AI Innovation Studio leads to execute the  Discovery Methodology across multiple business engagements. 

• Co-design and facilitate discovery workshops using techniques such as Design Thinking, journey mapping, process mapping, and structured ideation. 

• Conduct and support stakeholder interviews to surface pain points, constraints, decision drivers, and success criteria across business and IT audiences. 

Translate Business Problems into AI-Ready Inputs 

• Collaborate with Studio leads to synthesize insights from stakeholder interviews, journey mapping, and user research into clear problem statements, use cases, and desired outcomes. 

• Document current-state workflows, user needs, pain points, and non-functional considerations required for Opportunity Assessment. 

• Produce clear, well-structured artifacts that translate business ambiguity into actionable inputs for AI and delivery teams. 

Support Technically Grounded Opportunity Shaping 

• Apply a strong understanding of AI, automation, data platforms, and cloud technologies to help scope feasible and value-oriented solution approaches. 

• Engage architects, data scientists, and engineers with informed questions to validate assumptions and surface technical or data constraints. 

• Help ensure proposed AI opportunities are grounded in technical reality prior to handoff to delivery teams. 

Contribute to PoC Planning & Handoff 

• Own the end-to-end value case for each assessed AI opportunity  from initial data discovery and ideation through building ROI models and business cases  providing the quantitative rigor needed to validate, prioritize, and advance initiatives into PoC. 

• Support early PoC planning by clarifying scope boundaries, assumptions, success metrics, and stakeholder expectations. 

• Ensure discovery outputs are complete, coherent, and decision-ready, reducing friction during transition to delivery teams. 

• Participate in alignment discussions to maintain continuity from discovery through execution. 

Support Stakeholder Alignment & Engagement 

• Build strong working relationships with business and IT stakeholders through clear communication, reliability, and follow-through. 

• Support stakeholder working sessions and alignment forums, adapting to varying stakeholder styles and priorities. 

• Contribute to positive client experiences by maintaining momentum, clarity, and trust throughout engagements. 

 

What Should you have: 

Experience 

• 7+ years of experience in consulting, business analysis, product discovery, or innovation-focused roles. 

• Experience supporting technology-enabled initiatives, with exposure to AI, automation, or data platforms preferred. 

• Comfort operating in team-based, client-facing environments with shared accountability. 

Core Skills 

• Workshop design and facilitation, including experience co-designing and delivering structured discovery sessions. 

• Problem translation, with the ability to clearly document business challenges and desired outcomes. 

• Strong analytical thinking and comfort decomposing complex processes and workflows. 

Technical Skills 

• Solid understanding of technology value propositions, including AI/GenAI, data platforms, cloud services, and automation. 

• Ability to engage technical partners constructively and challenge assumptions when appropriate. 

• Familiarity with Agile and iterative delivery approaches. 

Soft Skills 

• Highly collaborative and adaptable, with comfort partnering across multiple AI Innovation Studio leads. 

• Strong communication skills and high emotional intelligence. 

• Organized, dependable, and effective in ambiguous, fast-moving environments. 

Education:

• B.S. Degree

Our technology teams operate as business partners, proposing ideas and innovative solutions that enable new organizational capabilities. We collaborate internationally to deliver services and solutions that help everyone be more productive and enable innovation. 

What we look for: 

Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping to save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with a group of colleagues who pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling some of the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is constantly evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join us—and start making your impact today. 

Required Skills:

Client Counseling, Emerging Technologies, Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT), Product Management, Requirements Management, Solution Architecture, Stakeholder Relationship Management, Technical Advice, User Experience (UX) Design, Waterfall Model

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  As a federal contractor, we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.  For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws, visit:

EEOC Know Your Rights

EEOC GINA Supplement​

We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

Learn more about your rights, including under California, Colorado and other US State Acts

U.S. Hybrid Work Model

Effective September 5, 2023, employees in office-based positions in the U.S. will be working a Hybrid work consisting of three total days on-site per week, Monday - Thursday, although the specific days may vary by site or organization, with Friday designated as a remote-working day, unless business critical tasks require an on-site presence.This Hybrid work model does not apply to, and daily in-person attendance is required for, field-based positions; facility-based, manufacturing-based, or research-based positions where the work to be performed is located at a Company site; positions covered by a collective-bargaining agreement (unless the agreement provides for hybrid work); or any other position for which the Company has determined the job requirements cannot be reasonably met working remotely. Please note, this Hybrid work model guidance also does not apply to roles that have been designated as “remote”.

The salary range for this role is

$142,400.00 - $224,100.00

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs.

The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits.  Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.

You can apply for this role through https://jobs.merck.com/us/en (or via the Workday Jobs Hub if you are a current employee). The application deadline for this position is stated on this posting.

San Francisco Residents Only: We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only: We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails. 

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

No relocation

VISA Sponsorship:

No

Travel Requirements:

25%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

n/a

Job Posting End Date:

04/24/2026

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.