Chief Specialist Accelerating Discovery to Development (E&RD Business Partner)

About Ma'aden and the Role

Ma'aden, established in 1997, is a multi-commodity mining and metals company in the Middle East, contributing to the development of Saudi Arabia's economy. This full-time role for a Chief Specialist, Accelerating Discovery to Development (E&RD Business Partner), is based in Riyadh and requires over 10 years of experience.

Role Purpose

The Chief Specialist, Accelerating Discovery to Development, focuses on transforming the application of technology in mineral exploration at Ma’aden. This involves accelerating the process from initial exploration insights to scientifically validated, decision-ready evidence. The role connects advanced technologies such as automation, sensing, Data & AI, subsurface analytics, and laboratory science to enhance exploration capabilities. As an enterprise technical authority, this position guides the selection, validation, and application of emerging technologies across the exploration lifecycle, aiming to shorten learning cycles, improve confidence in findings, and strengthen the technical basis for investment decisions.

Key Responsibilities

• Shape the enterprise exploration technology roadmap to accelerate discovery and validation through automation, advanced sensing, AI-enabled targeting, and intelligent drilling.
• Translate emerging technologies into deployable exploration capabilities, selecting solutions based on scientific validity, technology readiness, field applicability, and potential business value.
• Build Ma’aden’s technical advantage by identifying and adapting relevant technologies and practices from Oil & Gas subsurface science, space exploration, OEMs, academia, and research institutions.
• Advance AI-enabled exploration by integrating geological, geophysical, geochemical, and remote-sensing information to strengthen subsurface interpretation, target ranking, and uncertainty management.
• Apply advanced analytics, including predictive modelling, deep learning, physics-informed AI, and probabilistic approaches, to increase the speed and confidence of exploration insights.
• Establish confidence-based decision metrics that make uncertainty, reproducibility, and learning rate visible alongside conventional exploration measures.
• Transform the field-to-lab validation cycle by connecting sensing, drilling, and sampling with high-throughput analytical methods, automated core analysis, and digital sample traceability.
• Accelerate independent and reproducible validation of exploration findings, reducing analytical turnaround, rework, and delays between initial observation and decision-ready evidence.
• Strengthen approval readiness by establishing fit-for-purpose certified analytical technologies, traceable data, and scientifically defensible methods.
• Design scalable field-lab-digital workflows that connect field acquisition, laboratory analysis, and AI-enabled interpretation into a coherent exploration technology model.
• Enable greater exploration productivity through automation, digital twins, sensor fusion, autonomous or remote technologies, and AI-assisted decision workflows.
• Align laboratory capacity, automation, and digital capability with exploration ambition.
• Evaluate frontier technologies for practical exploration value, balancing scientific robustness, technology readiness, deployment constraints, cost, risk, and scalability.
• Accelerate transfer of proven cross-industry innovation into mineral exploration, particularly in autonomous systems, subsurface analytics, remote sensing, and extreme-environment instrumentation.
• Demonstrate measurable technology value through shorter learning and validation cycles, lower re-testing and re-sampling, improved target confidence, and more efficient exploration workflows.

Success Metrics

• Achieve shorter field-to-validated-result cycle times, enabling faster technical and portfolio decisions.
• Reduce laboratory turnaround time and avoidable re-analysis, with improved first-time quality, traceability, and reproducibility of critical results.
• Attain higher confidence in drill-ready targets, supported by integrated data, explicit uncertainty measures, and scientifically defensible validation.
• Ensure faster progression from exploration concept to drill-ready target through effective application of automation, AI, and advanced sensing technologies.
• Improve exploration efficiency, demonstrated through reduced cost, re-sampling, re-testing, and decision latency attributable to technology-enabled workflows.
• Achieve successful adoption and scaling of high-value technologies, including AI-enabled exploration and relevant cross-industry innovations.

Experience Required

Candidates should possess more than 10 years of relevant experience in a related field.