Lead Specialist Innovation Portfolio📣 Job Ad

About the Role

Maaden is seeking a Lead Specialist Innovation Portfolio to join its team in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This full-time role is crucial for maximizing the value of the company's innovation investments by establishing a structured, transparent, and strategically aligned innovation portfolio.

Role Purpose and Strategic Impact

This position ensures that innovation initiatives are prioritized, governed, and managed as a balanced portfolio, directly supporting Maaden's long-term business growth, operational excellence, and transformation objectives. Through disciplined portfolio management practices, the Lead Specialist will improve investment decisions, accelerate the delivery of high-value initiatives, and strengthen the organization's ability to translate innovation opportunities into measurable business outcomes, including financial, operational, sustainability, and strategic value realization. The role also provides leadership with data-driven insights, portfolio transparency, and decision support to enable effective resource allocation and develop a sustainable pipeline of innovation opportunities, enhancing Maaden’s future competitiveness.

Key Responsibilities

• Establish and continuously enhance innovation portfolio governance frameworks, prioritization models, and investment criteria, aligning investments with business strategy and long-term value creation objectives.
• Optimize innovation investment decisions by evaluating opportunities based on strategic fit, value potential, risk, scalability, and feasibility, developing robust business cases and recommendations.
• Define and implement portfolio performance frameworks and value realization measures, continuously monitoring innovation performance and driving optimization through insights.
• Build and maintain a sustainable pipeline of innovation opportunities and emerging technology initiatives, enhancing portfolio resilience through balanced management across varying maturity levels and risk profiles.
• Foster collaboration across Innovation, Technology Operations, Data & AI, and business functions to accelerate innovation delivery, resolving portfolio dependencies, resource constraints, and execution risks.
• Deliver executive-level portfolio reporting, generating actionable insights that support strategic planning, budgeting, and innovation roadmap development, influencing leadership decisions through evidence-based recommendations.

Indicators of Success

• Innovation investments demonstrate clear alignment with strategic business priorities.
• Portfolio governance frameworks enable transparent and effective decision-making.
• Innovation initiatives deliver measurable financial, operational, sustainability, and strategic value.
• A balanced pipeline of innovation opportunities is maintained across multiple maturity levels.
• Leadership receives timely, accurate, and actionable portfolio insights.
• Portfolio resources are optimized to maximize innovation outcomes and business impact.

Experience and Qualifications

Candidates for this role should possess 5 to 10 years of relevant experience in innovation portfolio management or a related strategic function. The role requires a strong understanding of portfolio strategy, governance, investment prioritization, performance measurement, and pipeline management.

Work Location

This is a full-time position based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributing to Maaden's strategic innovation initiatives.