Principal Technical Consultant - Operational Technology, Network Security

About AHEAD

AHEAD helps organizations modernize and secure the technology that runs their business. We are building a deeper Operational Technology capability for clients in manufacturing, energy, utilities, healthcare, transportation, and other industries where uptime, safety, and resilience matter. This role helps shape that capability while delivering meaningful client work.

The Role

The Principal Technical Consultant, Operational Technology is a senior technical leader and trusted advisor, and the primary technical resource on OT Assessments and SRDP (strategy, roadmap, design, and plan) engagements. This is a hands-on role. You will lead technical discovery, facilitate workshops, analyze industrial environments, build architecture and roadmap deliverables, guide delivery teams, and present recommendations to client leaders. You should be equally comfortable discussing a PLC network with an automation engineer, an operating model with plant leadership, and investment priorities with a CISO or CIO.

What You Will Do:

Lead OT assessments and advisory engagements

• Serve as the primary technical lead for OT Assessments, OT strategy work, and SRDP workstreams.
• Plan and facilitate discovery workshops, site visits, technical deep dives, and executive working sessions.
• Establish a safe, non-disruptive discovery approach that respects production schedules, safety requirements, and change control.
• Assess the client environment across assets, networks, control systems, dependencies, ownership, and operational constraints, and evaluate maturity across people, process, and technology.
• Identify risks, gaps, single points of failure, and lifecycle concerns affecting security, reliability, visibility, and resilience.
• Produce current-state and future-state architecture views, findings, maturity assessments, and prioritized roadmaps that connect recommendations to business impact, investment, and sequencing.
• Own the technical quality of deliverables and present findings to engineering teams, plant and operations leaders, and executives.

Apply deep OT and cybersecurity expertise

• Analyze OT and ICS architectures spanning PLCs, HMIs, SCADA, DCS, historians, MES, engineering workstations, safety systems, and connected edge environments.
• Evaluate IT/OT connectivity, Purdue-aligned design, zones and conduits, industrial DMZs, segmentation, remote access, and third-party connectivity.
• Assess asset inventory, passive visibility, communication flows, protocol use, legacy platforms, and compensating controls.
• Evaluate identity and access, endpoint protection, vulnerability and patch management, monitoring, incident response, backup, and recovery practices. • Balance security recommendations against safety, availability, performance, maintenance windows, and long OT lifecycles.
• Apply recognized standards including NIST SP 800-82, ISA/IEC 62443, and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, plus applicable regulatory requirements.
• Bring a point of view on secure remote operations, edge computing, industrial wireless and private 5G, cloud-connected OT, and OT data.

Lead technical teams and delivery qualit y

• Lead and delegate work across technical consultants, engineers, and client resources on one or more workstreams.
• Break complex problems into work packages with clear approach, decision points, and acceptance criteria.
• Coordinate with Project Managers, account teams, and other AHEAD practices to deliver an integrated solution.
• Review technical work for accuracy and clarity, and mentor consultants on architecture, analysis, documentation, and client interaction.
• Contribute to repeatable methods, templates, and reference architectures for the OT practice.

Contribute to business development

• Participate in discovery and qualification meetings as the OT subject matter expert.
• Help shape scopes of work, estimates, work breakdown structures, assumptions, risks, and proposals.
• Support technical solutioning and proposal presentations with senior client stakeholders.
• Develop practical thought leadership, internal enablement, and client briefings that strengthen AHEAD's OT brand.

What You Will Bring:

Required Qualifications

• 10 or more years delivering complex technology, cybersecurity, network, or engineering solutions, with significant Operational Technology or ICS experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading OT or ICS assessments, architecture, segmentation, cybersecurity, or modernization engagements.
• Strong understanding of control-system architectures and industrial protocols such as Modbus, DNP3, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, or OPC UA.
• Strong OT networking and security depth, including routing and switching, firewalls, industrial DMZs, segmentation, remote access, identity, and monitoring.
• Ability to explain the operational impact of technical decisions where safety, availability, and production continuity are critical.
• Experience producing architecture diagrams, maturity assessments, prioritized roadmaps, and executive presentations.
• Experience facilitating workshops with stakeholders from the plant floor through executive leadership.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to tailor complex material to the audience.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical teams, delegate, review work, and mentor others.
• Willingness to travel to client sites as engagements require.
• Bachelor's degree in a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with ISA/IEC 62443, NIST SP 800-82, NIST CSF, NERC CIP, FDA, or other industry-specific requirements.
• Background in manufacturing, energy, utilities, water, healthcare, transportation, chemicals, or pharmaceuticals.
• Experience with OT asset discovery and passive monitoring platforms, industrial firewalls, secure remote access, or OT security operations.
• Experience with IT/OT convergence, edge platforms, industrial wireless, private 5G, or OT data platforms.
• Experience developing estimates, work breakdown structures, service briefs, or statements of work.
• Certifications such as GICSP, GRID, CISSP, ISA/IEC 62443, or CCNP/CCIE.

How You Will be Successful:

In your first year, you will independently lead OT discovery and assessment work that clients trust, produce client-ready deliverables that move decisions forward, earn credibility with both plant-floor and executive stakeholders, strengthen the delivery team through coaching and review, and contribute reusable OT methods that improve how AHEAD delivers.

Why This Role Matters:

OT consulting is not about applying enterprise IT controls unchanged to a plant floor. It takes technical depth, operational humility, and the ability to make progress without losing sight of safety, reliability, or recovery. If you have spent your career understanding how industrial environments work and want to help organizations make them more secure and resilient, this role puts that experience in front of the clients who need it.