Chief Data Officer — Gas And LNG Business

The mandate

A listed gas and LNG business has invested substantially in lakes, dashboards, analytics and specialist teams, but relatively few outputs are reused across assets or embedded in operating decisions. Engineers still reconcile critical records manually, ownership weakens across system boundaries and promising pilots often lose sponsorship after demonstration. An asset-integrity programme now gives the organisation a compelling test: can data investment improve real inspection, maintenance and risk choices?

The Chief Data Officer will govern a QAR 28,450 million operated asset and trading perimeter and an ecosystem of approximately 1,800 employees and material partners. Information spans equipment, inspection, maintenance, process conditions, projects, production, commercial commitments and reference data. Some datasets are safety or commercially sensitive, so speed must be paired with clear lineage, access, quality and retention controls.

The CDO reports to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive committee sponsor and works alongside asset, technical, technology, cyber, risk and finance leaders. The role is not a central analytics factory. It must establish product ownership close to use, shared foundations where reuse is valuable and governance that makes unreliable evidence visible.

Why this seat is open

This is planned new hiring under the next operating model. Data leaders continue to manage current platforms and programmes, but enterprise authority over domains, reusable products, economics and adoption is absent. No incumbent is being replaced. The board has allowed four to six months to appoint ahead of its subsequent investment and talent cycle.

What you will own

• Define the enterprise data strategy around a small number of gas and LNG decisions, beginning with integrity, rather than technology categories or an undifferentiated use-case inventory.
• Assign accountable business owners to critical domains and clarify steward, custodian, producer and consumer obligations at each system boundary.
• Build reusable data products for equipment hierarchy, inspection history, maintenance, operating condition and risk, with explicit service levels and lineage.
• Establish quality rules based on the consequence of use; distinguish data that can support exploration from evidence used to defer work or accept integrity risk.
• Integrate data architecture with cyber, privacy, records and information-protection requirements, preventing local copies from becoming uncontrolled operational dependencies.
• Stop, combine or redirect pilots that lack a committed user, operational workflow, economic baseline or route to supported production.
• Create product funding that includes ownership, change, adoption, support and retirement rather than paying only for initial build.
• Develop data product leaders, engineers, governance specialists and translators who can work credibly with technical authorities and frontline users.

The first 12 months

The first 90 days should trace several consequential integrity decisions from source measurement through engineering judgement and board reporting. Identify manual reconciliation, conflicting identifiers and unowned transformations that change the answer. Inventory current pilots by user, adoption, recurring cost and production status, then recommend which should stop before further expenditure.

By month six, appoint owners for the priority domains and release the first integrity data product with agreed quality and service measures. Integrate it into a live inspection or maintenance workflow rather than placing another dashboard alongside existing practice. Establish a data-product council that can fund, challenge and retire products based on value and risk.

Months seven through ten should extend the product to a second asset or decision context, proving that reuse does not require complete reinvention. Address the largest source-system and identity constraints, introduce monitored quality controls and train users to escalate unreliable evidence. Report total product cost and adoption to the executive sponsor.

At year-end, the organisation should have trusted products in routine use, named ownership for critical domains and a materially smaller unfunded pilot backlog. The next data budget must be justified through adoption, decision improvement and risk reduction, not volume of records or models created.

What the board will measure

• Named accountable owners and approved quality thresholds for 100% of priority integrity domains within 120 days.
• Two reusable data products operating in production across at least two assets or decision workflows.
• Active adoption above 80% among the designated user populations within three months of each release.
• A 30% reduction in manual reconciliation time for the selected integrity decisions without weakening independent engineering review.
• At least 20% of low-evidence pilot expenditure stopped or reassigned to products with committed business ownership.
• Critical data-quality exceptions escalated within agreed thresholds and no material risk acceptance based on unlabelled or untraceable evidence.

The person

You are a Chief Data Officer, Data and Analytics Head or Digital Executive with 18–22 years across energy, oil and gas, utilities, chemicals, industrial services or another asset-intensive sector. You have moved data products from pilot to supported operating use and can show which business decision improved, not simply how the platform scaled.

The minimum accountable perimeter is QAR 16,500 million in P&L, book, budget or portfolio and leadership of at least 1,250 people. You understand domain ownership, metadata, quality, architecture, product economics and adoption. You have also stopped visible data initiatives when user commitment or evidential integrity was inadequate.

This is an onsite Doha role with relocation support. Regular engagement with asset and technical teams is essential, and permanent remote leadership is not contemplated.

Compensation and terms

The anticipated package is QAR 1.9–2.7 million fixed plus annual incentive and LTI. Final calibration reflects scope and current mix, while long-term awards follow normal vesting, performance and conduct rules. A notice period up to six months may be incorporated into mobilisation planning.

Confidentiality

The listed organisation, assets, source systems, quality findings and product portfolio remain protected. Identifying detail is shared after qualification, reciprocal interest, diligence and confidentiality documentation.