Program Manager, Solution Innovation

Our team members are at the heart of everything we do. At Cencora, we are united in our responsibility to create healthier futures, and every person here is essential to us being able to deliver on that purpose. If you want to make a difference at the center of health, come join our innovative company and help us improve the lives of people and animals everywhere. Apply today! Job Details The Program Manager, Solution Innovation is responsible for managing the solution innovation workstreams, governance process, and operating pathway that moves ideas, concepts, pilots, and solution opportunities through disciplined evaluation, prioritization, stage-gate review, roadmap alignment, and execution tracking. Reporting to the Group Product Owner - Solution Innovation and Design, this role ensures the solution innovation pathway is clearly documented, consistently applied, transparent to stakeholders, and aligned with CPS product and solution development priorities. This role supports product strategy execution by translating innovation priorities, market insights, customer needs, and leadership decisions into structured program plans, committee routines, stage-gate deliverables, roadmap updates, and implementation requirements. The role maintains the operating infrastructure that enables the Group Product Owner, Product Development Committee, solution teams, commercialization partners, analytics, legal/compliance, operations, and other stakeholders to evaluate and advance innovation opportunities in a repeatable and measurable way. This role does not own product strategy or final product prioritization decisions; instead, it owns the program management discipline, governance administration, process documentation, stakeholder coordination, dependency tracking, and reporting routines required to support timely and effective solution innovation decisions. The Program Manager ensures innovation items are organized, stage-gate materials are complete, committee decisions are captured, roadmap and backlog data are maintained, and risks, issues, decisions, and follow-ups are visible and actionable. Primary Duties and Responsibilities : Solution Innovation Pathway Management Implement, maintain, and continuously improve the Solution Innovation pathway from idea intake through discovery, validation, pilot/proof-of-concept, scale recommendation, roadmap transition, and post-decision follow-up. Translate the priorities of the Group Product Owner - Solution Innovation and Design into structured program plans, operating routines, meeting cadences, decision checkpoints, documentation requirements, and stakeholder deliverables. Define and maintain pathway documentation including process maps, stage-gate expectations, intake criteria, readiness checklists, decision rights, artifacts, intake forms, governance calendars, and communication protocols. Ensure the innovation pathway is applied consistently across solution workstreams while remaining flexible enough to support different types of innovation opportunities, pilots, prototypes, and business cases. Identify process bottlenecks, ambiguous handoffs, inconsistent documentation, and decision delays; recommend and implement improvements to increase clarity, speed, accountability, and stakeholder alignment. Product Development Committee Operations and Governance Coordinate and manage the Product Development Committee operating rhythm, including agenda planning, materials intake, pre-read preparation, meeting facilitation support, decision documentation, action tracking, and follow-up communication. Support the Group Product Owner in preparing innovation concepts, backlog recommendations, stage-gate materials, and roadmap updates for Product Development Committee review. Ensure committee decisions, open questions, risks, approvals, deferrals, and next steps are captured accurately and communicated to appropriate stakeholders. Maintain governance records and decision logs to support transparency, traceability, and accountability across innovation pathway decisions. Monitor adherence to Product Development Committee processes and recommend refinements to governance structure, meeting cadence, decision standards, and escalation pathways. Innovation Backlog and Roadmap Administration Maintain the innovation backlog with current information on opportunity status, owner, strategic theme, stage-gate status, customer value, business rationale, dependencies, risks, target timing, and next actions. Support roadmap administration for solution innovation initiatives by tracking milestones, sequencing, stage transitions, prioritization inputs, and linkage to CPS solution strategy. Partner with the Group Product Owner and product stakeholders to ensure innovation backlog and roadmap data reflect current priorities, leadership decisions, capacity constraints, and dependencies. Develop and maintain reporting views that allow leadership to understand backlog health, pathway throughput, stage-gate progress, pipeline constraints, and upcoming decisions. Identify stale, duplicative, misaligned, or blocked backlog items and coordinate with owners to recommend disposition, refresh, escalation, or removal. Stage-Gate Process Execution and Artifact Management Manage stage-gate execution across solution innovation workstreams, including intake readiness, discovery documentation, problem statements, VOC summaries, pilot objectives, success criteria, feasibility inputs, risk assessments, and transition recommendations. Ensure required artifacts are developed, updated, reviewed, and stored in the appropriate location before stage-gate reviews and committee discussions. Coordinate with Product Owners, Product Managers, solution development teams, analytics, operations, commercialization, legal/compliance, finance, and other stakeholders to gather required stage-gate inputs. Track gate decisions and follow-up actions, ensuring workstream owners understand expectations required to progress to