Manager, Technology Planning & Governance (AI Transformation)

About the role

The AI Transformation Manager leads the refinery's AI transformation agenda by identifying, prioritizing and orchestrating AI and data-driven initiatives that deliver measurable business value. The role bridges business functions and technical teams, driving the transformation pipeline across operations, maintenance, engineering, reliability, planning, energy, supply chain, inspection and support functions. It maintains a robust use-case portfolio, aligns stakeholders, enforces delivery governance and supports adoption and scale-up.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the AI transformation strategy and roadmap, translating business priorities and enterprise digital strategy into a prioritized portfolio of AI, analytics, automation and intelligent decision-support opportunities.
• Identify and prioritize use cases with stakeholders, evaluating them on value, feasibility, data readiness, effort and risk, and develop concept notes, business cases, charters, KPIs and benefit logic.
• Orchestrate end-to-end delivery with operations, maintenance, engineering and digital teams, tracking milestones, managing interdependencies and removing barriers.
• Define expected outcomes and monitor progress against value targets such as throughput, yield, energy, reliability, maintenance cost avoidance, HSE improvement, labor productivity or margin uplift.
• Drive change management, communication, training and adoption so AI solutions become part of daily routines.
• Apply AI governance, risk, compliance and control processes, coordinating with cybersecurity, data governance, architecture, legal, procurement and HSE.
• Support external vendors with scope of work, requirements, proposal evaluation and delivery monitoring.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, data science, computer science, industrial engineering or a related discipline; a master's degree, transformation or project-management certification, or an AI/analytics certification is advantageous.
• Typically 8-12 years of experience in refinery, oil and gas, petrochemicals, energy or industrial transformation environments.
• Demonstrated experience delivering digital transformation, AI or analytics use cases, operations improvement or technology implementation.
• Strong experience in stakeholder engagement, business case development, cross-functional coordination and value realization tracking.

Required skills

• Working knowledge of refinery operations, value levers and performance drivers.
• Understanding of AI, analytics, machine learning and industrial digital use cases from ideation to scale-up.
• Awareness of business case methods, benefit tracking, change management, data governance and OT/IT deployment.
• Familiarity with historians, APC, ERP, CMMS, planning tools and performance reporting systems is preferred.