Principal Specialist, Exploration & Project Development & Engineering Data Domain

Role Overview

Principal Specialist, Exploration & Project Development & Engineering Data Domain at Ma'aden. This role shapes the strategic management, governance, and value realization of Exploration and Petroleum Development & Evaluation (PDE) data assets across the organization.

Role Purpose

The Principal Specialist ensures that critical subsurface, geological, geophysical, drilling, reservoir, and related technical data are trusted, accessible, secure, and aligned with business priorities. The role creates business value by enabling data-driven decision making, improving data quality and consistency, accelerating digital initiatives, and maximizing the return on data investments. Through strong domain stewardship and collaboration with business and technology stakeholders, this position strengthens operational performance, supports innovation, enhances organizational data maturity, and drives exploration success, improves resource evaluation outcomes, reduces information risk, and enables advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and digital transformation initiatives across the enterprise.

Key Responsibilities

Data Domain Strategy & Enablement

• Shape and execute the Exploration & PDE data domain strategy aligned with enterprise data and digital objectives.
• Establish a scalable data domain framework that improves data accessibility, usability, and business value.
• Drive prioritization of data initiatives that support exploration, evaluation, and resource development objectives.

Data Governance & Quality

• Strengthen governance practices that ensure data integrity, consistency, ownership, and regulatory compliance.
• Deliver measurable improvements in data quality through standards, controls, and stewardship processes.
• Govern critical data assets across their lifecycle to improve reliability and reduce operational risk.

Data Products & Value Realization

• Lead the development and enhancement of data products that enable operational and strategic decision making.
• Increase adoption of trusted data assets across technical and business functions.
• Translate business requirements into scalable data solutions that generate measurable business outcomes.

Technical Leadership

• Provide expert guidance on exploration, geological, geophysical, drilling, reservoir, and subsurface data management practices.
• Influence enterprise data architecture decisions to improve interoperability and domain integration.
• Promote industry-leading practices, technologies, and methodologies across the data ecosystem.

Stakeholder Management & Collaboration

• Build strong partnerships between business functions, digital teams, and external partners to align priorities and outcomes.
• Facilitate effective decision making through clear data ownership, accountability, and governance structures.
• Strengthen collaboration across domains to improve enterprise-wide data consistency and effectiveness.

Innovation & Continuous Improvement

• Accelerate the adoption of advanced analytics, automation, artificial intelligence, and digital capabilities through high-quality domain data.
• Identify opportunities to optimize processes, reduce manual effort, and improve data lifecycle efficiency.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement and data-driven performance.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Geoscience, Petroleum Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Management, or a related discipline.
• 10–15 years of relevant experience in exploration, subsurface, petroleum development, data management, or digital transformation environments.
• Demonstrated experience in data governance, data domains, master data, or enterprise data management frameworks.
• Experience leading cross-functional data initiatives and delivering business-focused data solutions.
• Experience working within large-scale energy, mining, natural resources, or industrial organizations.

Skills & Competencies

Functional Expertise

• Exploration and Subsurface Data Management
• Petroleum Development & Evaluation Data
• Data Governance and Stewardship
• Data Architecture and Data Modeling
• Data Quality Management
• Data Products and Data Lifecycle Management

Business & Delivery

• Strategic Planning
• Digital Transformation
• Data Product Delivery
• Business Value Realization
• Risk Management
• Performance Improvement

People & Collaboration

• Stakeholder Engagement
• Influencing and Negotiation
• Cross-Functional Leadership
• Communication and Presentation
• Change Management
• Collaboration and Relationship Building