Lead – Advanced Analytics & AI

Sulzer is a leading engineering company with a proud heritage of innovation. Join our global team to grow your expertise and develop innovative solutions that enable a prosperous and more sustainable society.

About the role

The Group Data & Analytics Expert is responsible for leading advanced analytics initiatives, developing data models, and delivering insights that support strategic decision-making across the organization. This role ensures data quality, governance, and the effective use of analytics tools. This job profile is intended for recognized subject matter experts in a job area. Required to manage large projects or processes with limited oversight from manager. Coaches, reviews and delegates work to lower level professionals.

Job purpose

Lead Sulzer's Advanced Analytics & AI function and convert prioritized business problems into production-grade statistical, machine-learning, GenAI and agentic-AI solutions with measurable adoption and value. The role owns the Analytics & AI service portfolio, delivery standards, production lifecycle and specialist capability development within the enterprise Data, Analytics & AI strategy set by the Global Head of Data, Analytics & AI.

Main selling points of the job (for recruiting)

§ Lead Sulzer's specialist Advanced Analytics & AI capability within the enterprise Data, Analytics & AI organization in Group IT.

§ Move analytics and AI from fragmented proofs of concept to reusable, governed and production-grade solutions.

§ Work with senior business and technology stakeholders on high-value industrial, commercial and functional use cases.

§ Build a core, high-calibre internal team while intelligently leveraging enterprise platforms and specialist partners.

Main accountabilities and tasks (include KPIs and ESH requirements, if available)

§ Own the Advanced Analytics & AI service portfolio: statistical learning, machine learning, optimization, GenAI, AI agents, MLOps/LLMOps and AI FinOps, aligned to enterprise priorities.

§ Translate approved business opportunities into a prioritized delivery portfolio with clear problem statements, value hypotheses, product/process owners, adoption plans and production criteria.

§ Establish Analytics & AI engineering patterns jointly with Enterprise Data Architecture and Data Engineering, including reusable AI services, evaluation, monitoring, observability, security and integration patterns.

§ Ensure solutions consume governed, trusted data products and comply with enterprise data, security, privacy and responsible-AI requirements.

§ Lead the lifecycle from discovery and experimentation through industrialization, deployment, adoption, monitoring and retirement; prevent proliferation of disconnected PoCs.

§ Lead, coach and develop Data Scientists, Forward Deployed AI Engineers & internal business / function teams; define skills, ways of working and a scalable delivery model combining a high-calibre internal team with specialist augmented capacity.

§ Partner with business leaders and FDEs to redesign decisions and processes around analytics and AI, with measurable user adoption and outcomes.

§ Own the augmented delivery and specialist partner model for Advanced Analytics & AI: plan capacity, allocate work, manage delivery quality, cost and partner performance, and ensure knowledge transfer into the internal team. Manage specialist vendors and platform partners and recommend make/buy/partner choices within enterprise architecture and investment guardrails.

§ KPIs: (1) Production adoption - priority analytics/AI solutions actively used in target decisions/processes; (2) Realized value - validated benefit from deployed portfolio; (3) Production effectiveness - agreed reliability/evaluation thresholds and time from approved use case to production.

§ ESH: comply with Sulzer ESH, information-security, data-protection and responsible-use requirements; ensure solutions do not compromise safe operational decision-making.

Job scope (as applicable, skip irrelevant parameters)

Financial:

Geographic: Global

Key internal / external stakeholders:

Internal stakeholders: Global Head Data, Analytics & AI; business/division leaders; Data Governance & Standards; Enterprise Data Architecture; Data Engineering & MDM; BI/Management Reporting; Enterprise Architecture; Cybersecurity; Legal/Privacy; process and product owners.

External stakeholders: Strategic technology providers, specialist analytics/AI partners and systems integrators.

Decision authority (based onDOA matrix, specific for the job): Functional delivery standards, solution methods, production readiness recommendations for advanced analytics and AI within approved enterprise and data architectures, governance and budget.

Desired experience and qualifications

Work experience: 12+ years in analytics, data science, AI or digital product engineering, including 4+ years leading multidisciplinary teams and production AI/analytics delivery.

Expertise (e.g. professional, technical): Statistical learning (SL), machine learning (ML), optimization, GenAI/LLMs and agentic AI patterns; MLOps / LLMOps; experimentation and evaluation; cloud/data platforms; APIs and enterprise integration; product/value management. Strong Snowflake/Azure familiarity desirable. Demonstrated application of analytics/AI to marketing, sales, manufacturing, engineering, supply chain, commercial, service or enterprise functions strongly preferred.

Education: Master's degree or equivalent in computer science, engineering, statistics, mathematics, operations research, data science or related quantitative discipline; doctorate advantageous but not required.

Certifications: Snowflake / Microsoft / Salesforce platforms & ML/AI or data-platform certifications desirable.

Languages: Fluent professional English; additional languages advantageous.

Soft skills: Executive communication, structured problem solving, technical judgment, talent development, matrix influence, value orientation and willingness to guide stakeholders from low-value experimentation to areas of high business impact.

Other: This is a senior hands-on functional lead. The ideal candidate must be technically proficient and capable of reviewing solution approaches, experiments and production readiness.

What we offer you

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Sulzer is an equal opportunity employer. We believe in the strength of a diverse workforce and are committed to offering an inclusive work environment.

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