Innovation Architect

The Innovation Architect is responsible for identifying, shaping, and advancing innovation opportunities from ideation to execution-ready concepts. This role conducts market and competitor research, synthesizes internal and external insights, and manages the front half of the innovation pipeline- primary responsibility for facilitating concepts through the innovation wheel from ideation through validation and prototyping-until they are ready for a formal go/no-go decision. The Innovation Architect translates ambiguous market signals and business needs into clear, testable concepts, supporting evidence-based prioritization and investment decisions.Key Responsibilities Market & Opportunity IntelligenceConduct market research, competitive analysis, and trend monitoring to identify relevant opportunities and threats.Synthesize external findings with internal insights from teams and client engagements.Identify opportunity spaces aligned to strategic priorities and articulate why they matter (client value, differentiation, feasibility).Idea Sourcing & IntakeSource ideas from the Innovation Council, internal teams, client engagements, RFPs, and market insights.Manage the end-to-end intake and triage process, including documentation, routing, and initial evaluation.Assess ideas for relevance, differentiation, and feasibility at an early stage.Ensure consistent documentation and evaluation across all submissions and findings.Use Case & Concept DefinitionDefine structured use cases, including personas, pain points, frequency/impact, current solution analysis, and key constraints.Translate ambiguous ideas into testable concepts with clear problem statements, hypotheses, and success measures.Produce concise concept artifacts that enable stakeholder alignment and fast decision-making.Innovation Wheel FacilitationOwn the day-to-day project management while facilitating concepts through the innovation wheel in strong partnership with business, design, product, and technical leaders.Coordinate desirability, feasibility, and viability validation activities and ensure appropriate rigor at each stage.Run the operating cadence for each concept (kickoffs, working sessions, stakeholder check-ins, and stage-gate reviews), including agendas, notes, action items, and decision capture.Track progress and manage risks/issues (blockers, resourcing gaps, decision delays, scope creep), escalating proactively to maintain momentum and clarity.Ensure stage-gate readiness by confirming required evidence and artifacts are completed to standard at each stage (problem statement, use case, validation findings, prototype outputs, feasibility considerations, and decision materials).Maintain portfolio visibility across in-flight concepts by reporting status, timelines, upcoming gates, risks, and support needed to the Innovation Lead and governance stakeholders.Drive timely progression and closure by enforcing timeboxes, aligning stakeholders on next steps, and ensuring concepts either advance with clear ownership or are paused/closed with documented rationale.Ensure required materials and artifacts are produced at each stage to support governance and progression.Prototyping & Validation SupportCreate or facilitate low- to mid-fidelity prototypes to support concept testing.Coordinate validation activities with end users, clients, and/or internal stakeholders to gather actionable feedback.Capture insights and translate learnings into iterations, recommendations, and go/no-go inputs.Business Case DevelopmentDevelop preliminary business cases to support go/no-go decisions (value hypothesis, target users, benefits, risks, and directional sizing).Partner with the Innovation Lead on final business case development and presentation-ready decision materials.Thought Leadership & External EngagementSupport conference planning and leadership engagement by translating innovation work into market-facing narratives and materials.Contribute to Mercer's innovation visibility through succinct storytelling of problems, solutions, and outcomes.Additional Skills & ExperiencesMarket Research & Synthesis: Strong ability to conduct competitive research, identify patterns, and convert findings into crisp opportunity narratives.Structured Problem Solving: Proven skill in shaping ambiguous problems into actionable, testable concepts and use cases.Facilitation & Collaboration: Experience facilitating cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder workshops across business and technology teams.Concept Communication: Ability to create clear artifacts (one-pagers, use cases, problem statements, concept briefs) that accelerate alignment and decisions. Confidence presenting concepts to internal and external stakeholders.User-Centered Validation: Familiarity with lightweight validation methods (interviews, surveys, prototype tests) and integrating feedback into iterations.Influence in a Matrix: Demonstrated success driving progress without direct authority in a complex…

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