Program Manager - Business & Ecosystems Lifesciences (f/m/x)

Your role

As a Program Manager with a strong focus on business in an AI-driven world, you operate as a strategic orchestrator and value owner. Your responsibility goes beyond strong concepts - your focus is delivering real, market-ready business solutions in collaboration with our strategic business units.

At ZEISS Digital Partners (ZDP), we’re shaping the future of ZEISS through digital and AI - fast, scalable, and close to the business. Together with ZEISS business units, we drive digital and AI transformation and create innovative solutions that deliver real value for customers and the company. Our Digital Business Innovation team brings together diverse expertise to build new digital products, develop business models, and lead innovation transformation initiatives. By combining customer-centric methods with strong business and strategy capabilities, we turn ideas into impact.

You will:

Lead complex innovation programs from opportunity identification to MVP and scaling - leveraging AI to drive measurable business value, adoption, and impact

Enable SBUs to experiment rapidly, bring ideas to market, and scale solutions

Anticipate how AI reshapes roles, and customer interactions, while speeding up workflows and processes proactively integrating these shifts into solution design

Act as a thought leader and trusted advisor on digital business innovation and digital transformation topics in an AI-driven world - separating hype from value and enabling informed decisions

Define success beyond pilots, including value metrics, decision logic, operating models, and governance for AI‑powered solutions

Collaborate with the ZEISS business units as well as our Design, Data Analytics and Cloud Engineering colleagues at ZEISS Digital Partners

Your profile

You are a business expert for digital & AI innovation, comfortable navigating uncertainty, rapid technological change, and senior‑level decision contexts

You bring:

An excellent university degree, preferably in business, engineering, natural sciences, or informatics 5+ years of experience in top management consulting, corporate strategy, digital transformation, or innovation roles with exposure to AI‑enabled solutions

A strong track record of leading complex, cross‑functional innovation initiatives with senior stakeholders — from problem framing to execution

Solid understanding of AI and GenAI value mechanisms in Innovation and R&D, including where automation, augmentation, and decision intelligence create real business impact

Strong communication skills and the empathy to easily communicate with people from diverse backgrounds

Experience with working in or with the APAC region is a plus Fluency in English (fluency in German would be a plus)

Your ZEISS Recruiting Team: Sabrina Rieker