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

About the Role

Ma'aden - Saudi Arabian Mining Company | معادن is seeking a Chief Specialist, Accelerating Discovery to Development (E&RD Business Partner) to join their team in Riyadh. This full-time role focuses on transforming the application of technology in mineral exploration, aiming to accelerate the process from initial insights to scientifically validated, decision-ready evidence. The Chief Specialist will serve as an enterprise technical authority, guiding the selection, validation, and application of emerging technologies across the exploration lifecycle.

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 that enable efficient technical review, external reporting, and portfolio decisions.
• 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, enabling technology solutions to scale as exploration activity evolves.
• 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.

Expected Outcomes

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

Qualifications and Experience

• A minimum of 10 years of relevant experience is required.

Work Environment

This is a full-time position based in Riyadh. The role involves connecting frontier technologies in automation, advanced sensing, Data & AI, subsurface analytics, and laboratory science to create faster, more reliable, and scalable exploration capabilities.