Chief Information Officer

Albemarle•Houston, TX

About The Position

Ketjen Corporation, a provider of advanced catalyst solutions to leading producers in the petrochemical, refining, and specialty chemicals industries, is seeking a Chief Information Officer (CIO). The CIO will play a central role in building the company’s standalone IT capabilities, supporting operational continuity, and enabling technology-led value creation. This role is for a newly private equity owned business that is completing a separation from its former parent company. The CIO will define and execute Ketjen’s global IT strategy while building the IT organization, operating model, partner ecosystem, and governance required for a standalone company. The role requires both strategic and execution-oriented leadership, including managing the separation from the former parent company, TSA exit and transition risk, evaluating managed service providers, strengthening cybersecurity, and establishing scalable enterprise systems and IT operations. The CIO will serve as a strategic partner to the executive leadership team and ownership group, translating business priorities into technology, data, digital, analytics, and AI capabilities to improve operational performance, decision quality, productivity, and long-term competitiveness.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field.
15+ years of progressive IT experience, including senior leadership roles with enterprise-wide scope and accountability.
Proven experience developing and executing IT strategies aligned to business priorities, transformation agendas, and operating model requirements.
Demonstrated success leading IT separation, carve-out, divestiture, merger integration, or standalone capability build-out efforts.
Experience designing IT organizations, building high-performing teams, and defining retained versus outsourced capabilities.
Track record leading enterprise applications, infrastructure, cloud, cybersecurity, data, analytics, and large-scale transformation programs.
Strong financial acumen, including IT budgeting, cost optimization, vendor spend management, and business case development.
Executive presence and ability to operate effectively with senior leadership, ownership representatives, board members, functional leaders, plant leaders, and external partners.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree, MBA, or advanced degree in information systems, engineering, business, or a related discipline.
Experience in private equity owned, sponsor-backed, or similarly performance-oriented environments.
Experience in specialty chemicals, manufacturing, industrial products, process industries, petrochemical/refining, or similarly complex multi-site operating environments.
Experience with OT/IT convergence, plant systems, manufacturing analytics, MES, LIMS, EHS, quality, supply chain, and R&D/lab informatics environments.
Proven success creating analytics, AI, automation, data governance, and digital transformation roadmaps.
Experience supporting global operations, distributed sites, and cross-border IT service delivery.

Responsibilities

Lead IT separation from its former parent company, including TSA governance, dependency mapping, data migration, application and infrastructure disentanglement, security transition planning, and Day 1/Day 2 readiness.
Design and build Ketjen’s standalone IT operating model, including retained organization structure, role clarity, service delivery model, global/regional support, and governance cadence.
Evaluate current and future MSP relationships, including RFPs or market benchmarking, SLA design, vendor accountability, and insource/outsource decisions.
Create an analytics and AI strategy with prioritized business use cases, data governance, responsible AI controls, adoption model, and measurable value creation targets.
Support digital transformation across manufacturing, supply chain, finance, commercial, R&D, EHS, quality, and enterprise functions.
Establish a cost-effective, cyber-resilient, and scalable technology platform capable of supporting a global chemicals and catalyst manufacturing business.
Develop and execute a global IT strategy aligned with Ketjen’s business objectives, separation plan, operating model, and value creation priorities.
Partner with the CEO, CFO, executive leadership team, functional leaders, plant leaders, and ownership representatives to identify technology-enabled opportunities to improve performance.
Translate business needs into scalable technology, digital, data, and process solutions across global functions and sites.
Establish IT investment governance, prioritization mechanisms, KPIs, and executive reporting that link technology spend to business outcomes.
Lead the IT workstream for Ketjen’s separation from its former parent company, including planning, execution, risk management, and stakeholder alignment.
Manage TSA scope, cost, service levels, exit milestones, and dependency resolution across applications, infrastructure, identity, network, data, cyber, and end-user services.
Oversee enterprise data migration, data ownership, historical data access, reporting continuity, and cutover readiness.
Ensure the standalone technology environment is secure, stable, compliant, and able to support business continuity at global operating sites.
Assess the current IT organization and design the future-state retained team, leadership structure, capability model, and talent roadmap.
Evaluate MSPs and strategic partners for infrastructure, service desk, applications, cybersecurity, data, ERP support, and project delivery.
Lead vendor selection, contract negotiation support, SLA definition, service governance, performance management, and cost benchmarking.
Build a culture of accountability, collaboration, customer service, continuous improvement, and disciplined execution within IT.
Oversee enterprise systems, infrastructure, applications, cloud services, collaboration tools, and end-user technology across all regions.
Develop and execute the roadmap for ERP, manufacturing systems, supply chain planning, finance systems, commercial platforms, EHS, quality, R&D/lab systems, and reporting tools.
Drive modernization of legacy systems and enable automation, workflow digitization, integration, and scalable cloud capabilities where appropriate.
Partner with operating leaders to identify digital opportunities in manufacturing, plant performance, reliability, OT/IT integration, quality, supply chain, customer service, and commercial effectiveness.
Create and execute an enterprise data, analytics, and AI strategy that improves decision-making, productivity, forecasting, operational visibility, and business performance.
Define data governance, master data management, data quality, reporting standards, analytics platforms, and data ownership across functions.
Prioritize AI and advanced analytics use cases based on business value, readiness, risk, and scalability.
Establish responsible AI governance, adoption practices, security controls, and value tracking for AI-enabled initiatives.
Establish and maintain a robust enterprise cybersecurity framework across corporate IT, cloud, third parties, and manufacturing/OT environments.
Strengthen OT/ICS cybersecurity, including plant network segmentation, vulnerability management, incident response, and resilience for manufacturing operations.
Ensure compliance with applicable regulatory, data privacy, industry, customer, and internal control requirements.
Oversee business continuity, disaster recovery, crisis response, third-party risk management, and IT audit remediation.
Own IT budgeting, forecasting, cost optimization, spend governance, project portfolio management, and resource allocation.
Establish IT service management practices, operating metrics, project delivery discipline, and performance dashboards.
Rationalize technology platforms, contracts, licenses, and services to improve reliability, scalability, security, and cost efficiency.
Drive continuous improvement in IT operations, user experience, service quality, and project execution.