Role Purpose:

The Associate Director - Digital & AI will lead the end- to-end execution and scaling of digital and AI initiatives within company, with a strong focus on chemical and process manufacturing environments, including batch, continuous, and hybrid operations, as well as supply chain, quality, and commercial functions.

Operating within enterprise digital and AI strategies defined by senior leadership, this role is accountable for delivering high- impact use cases from concept through scale, ensuring measurable business value, operational excellence, regulatory compliance, and rapid adoption on the ground across manufacturing and enterprise operations.

Key Responsibilities:

Digital & AI Execution & Value Delivery:

- Own and execute the enterprise Digital & AI roadmap aligned to manufacturing, supply chain, quality, sales, finance, R&D, and technical operations.

- Build, prioritize, and sustain a value-driven pipeline of digital and AI use cases using clear impact, feasibility, and scalability criteria.

- Track and realize measurable benefits across yield, quality, productivity, energy efficiency, working capital, service levels, and cost.

- Ensure solutions transition seamlessly from deployment to steady- state operations with sustained business ownership.

Advanced Analytics, AI & Automation:

- Lead delivery of AI/ML, Generative AI, advanced analytics, automation, and IIoT use cases across plants and enterprise platforms.

- Translate operational challenges (process variability, yield losses, quality deviations, uptime and energy inefficiencies) into scalable digital solutions.

- Embed analytics and automation into daily workflows to ensure adoption and decision enablement.

- Drive standardization and reuse of analytics models, automation components, and solution patterns across sites.

Digital Enablement for Chemical & Process Manufacturing:

- Lead digital and AI use cases across batch, continuous, and hybrid manufacturing environments.

- Deploy advanced analytics, PAT, predictive control, and real- time quality and optimization solutions.

- Enable integrated use of MES, LIMS, Historians, APC, and DCS in collaboration with plant, quality, and IT/OT teams.

- Support data- driven scale- up, technology transfer, formulation optimization, and process safety- by- design.

Delivery, Governance & Risk Management:

- Ensure disciplined program and project execution using agile and hybrid delivery models.

- Govern execution across internal teams, partners, and system integrators with clear accountability.

- Own techno- functional solution design, delivery governance, and risk management.

- Ensure compliance with enterprise AI governance, GMP, regulatory, cybersecurity, and IT/OT standards.

- Own AI lifecycle controls including validation, explainability, performance monitoring, and drift management.

Innovation, Capability & Change Enablement:

- Operationalize an innovation pipeline from ideation and PoC through scaled deployment.

- Evaluate and onboard fit- for- purpose digital platforms, tools, and partners.

- Build and develop a strong Digital & AI execution team.

- Drive change management, training, and adoption across manufacturing and business teams.

Outcome Accountability:

- Tangible business impact across yield, quality, productivity, energy efficiency, cost, service levels, and revenue enablement

- Secure, compliant, scalable, and widely adopted Digital & AI solutions

- A disciplined, execution- led Digital & AI operating model that consistently converts ideas into value PERSON

Qualifications & Experience:

a) Education & Experience

- 12-18 years of progressive experience in Digital, Analytics, and Technology-enabled transformation within manufacturing-led enterprises

- B.Tech/B.E. (Engineering); MBA/PGDM preferred

- Minimum 5-8 years of hands-on leadership experience delivering Digital & AI programs at scale

Certifications & Methodologies:

- Six Sigma Green Belt (or higher), Design Thinking, Agile / Hybrid Project Management preferred

- Strong experience in business case development, cost- benefit analysis, and value realization tracking

Digital & Technology Experience:

- Strong exposure to Industry 4.0 / 5.0 initiatives across manufacturing and enterprise functions

- Hands- on experience with a broad digital stack including MES, Data Historians, APC, Golden Batch Analytics, PAT, IIoT platforms, Advanced Analytics, AI/ML, Optimization, RPA / Intelligent Automation, Predictive Forecasting, Generative AI.

- Proven ability to translate operational problems into scalable digital and AI solutions

Domain Experience:

- Deep experience in Manufacturing (mandatory), along with at least one additional core domain such as Supply Chain, Quality, Sales, or R&D

- Strong preference for experience in Chemical, Process Manufacturing, or related regulated industries

Leadership & Transformation Experience:

- Led at least one end-to-end Digital Transformation or Industry 4.0 program (strategy through scaled rollout)

- Demonstrated experience working with plant leadership, quality, IT/OT, cybersecurity, and external system integrators

- Experience operating in GMP / regulated manufacturing environments is strongly preferred