Product Manager, Innovation and Emerging Solutions

Job Summary

The Product Manager, Innovation and Emerging Solutions is responsible for developing and bringing new early-stage products and solutions to market to advance Delta Dental of Massachusetts’ business and mission. This role owns innovation-driven emerging products and solutions from end-to-end from concept and pilot through evaluation and operationalization.

This Product Manager applies disciplined innovation and strong product management practices to translate customer, market, and strategic insights into a robust pipeline of pilots, emerging products and solutions with clear value propositions, measurable success criteria, and operational and regulatory readiness.

The role is accountable for execution rigor, cross-functional coordination, and executive communication to ensure innovation efforts deliver meaningful business, member, and market impact.

While the portfolio focus is on innovation and emerging solutions, this role carries the same ownership expectations, governance standards, and delivery accountability as all Product Manager roles within the organization.

Primary Job Responsibilities

Own End-to-End Delivery of Innovative Pilots and Emerging Products

• Own the full lifecycle of assigned innovation driven emerging products from concept definition through pilot launch, evaluation, and scale or exit recommendation.
• Define clear objectives, success metrics, and hypotheses tied to member or stakeholder impact, operational feasibility, financial signal, and scalability.
• Drive execution against defined timelines, milestones, and deliverables while proactively identifying and managing risks, dependencies, and tradeoffs.

Define Product Strategy and Design

• Translate customer needs, market insights, and enterprise strategy into well-defined emerging product concepts and pilots with clear value propositions and target segments.
• Develop product requirements, experience definitions, and pricing or funding assumptions in collaboration with actuarial, underwriting, clinical, operations, technology, and provider partners.
• Ensure innovative pilots and emerging products are intentionally designed to inform future products, lines of business, or platform capabilities.

Lead Go-to-Market and Adoption

• Partner with sales, marketing, and market research teams to develop go-to-market strategies and launch plans appropriate to emerging product scope.
• Support sales and client facing teams with education, materials, and enablement to drive informed participation and adoption.
• Serve as the product owner and subject matter expert for assigned emerging products and solutions with internal and external stakeholders.

Ensure Governance, Readiness, and Risk Management

• Coordinate cross-functional teams including operations, legal, compliance, clinical, provider relations, and technology to ensure operational and regulatory readiness.
• Conduct early assessments of regulatory, filing, and compliance implications so that pilots and emerging products are designed with scale in mind.
• Prepare and deliver clear executive updates, recommendations, and decision materials for stage-gates and go-no-go decisions.

Evaluate Performance and Guide Scale Decisions

• Monitor emerging product performance against defined success criteria and lead data driven evaluation of outcomes.
• Develop clear recommendations to scale, iterate, transition to core product ownership, or discontinue.
• Support a structured handoff to core product teams when emerging products advance to broader implementation.

Required

JOB QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, healthcare, or equivalent field of study.
• 7+ years of experience in product development and innovation, or related roles, with demonstrated results delivering products or services in regulated industries.
• Demonstrated experience leading cross functional innovation initiatives from concept through execution and experience launching pilots, minimum viable products, or new service models.
• Strong analytical, decision-making, and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate ambiguity into actionable plans.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, including experience presenting to senior leadership.
• Ability to balance innovation with execution discipline in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience with human centered design methodologies as well as using product, project management, and reporting tools to manage complex initiatives.
• Dental, medical, or ancillary product experience, and deep knowledge of commercial group, individual, Medicaid, and Medicare markets from a payer or provider perspective.

Preferred

• Familiarity with regulatory and compliance frameworks.
• Certifications in product management, program management, or agile methodologies.

Physical Demands

• Ability to work remotely from a dedicated space and in a professional office setting.
• Ability to commute to the corporate office on a regular basis.
• Ability to operate a personal computer and related technologies.
• Ability to travel by air as required by company and business needs.
• Ability to communicate effectively and work in a matrixed environment.

The target hiring range for this role is $132,260 - $155,600 ( Annually). The starting base salary will be determined based on skills, experience, and other job-related factors. In addition, our total rewards package includes medical, dental, and vision plans; generous time off including PTO, short and long-term disability insurance and a competitive 401(k) savings match including financial planning workshops.

See our Careers Page for more information.

The specific statements shown in each section of this description are not intended to be all-inclusive. They represent typical elements and criteria necessary to successfully perform this position.

• In accordance with Delta Dental of Massachusetts’ Compliance Plan, all employees must conduct Delta Dental of Massachusetts business and activities in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, professional standards, and ethical standards and report potential compliance or ethical issues to Delta Dental of Massachusetts’ designated Compliance Officer. **

Delta Dental of Massachusetts’ Affirmative Action Program affirms our commitment to make reasonable accommodations for known physical or mental limitations of otherwise qualified individuals with disabilities or special disabled veterans unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of our business and activities. Please see Human Resources for additional information regarding this program.