IIoT, Industry 4.0 & Industrial AI - Innovation Expert
About this opportunity
IIoT, Industry 4.0 & Industrial AI - Innovation Expert
Position Summary
The IIoT, Industry 4.0 & Industrial AI – Innovation Expert is a senior technical and strategic leadership role responsible for defining and driving Sanofi Digital M&S digital manufacturing foundation across its global industrial network.
The role combines deep hands-on expertise with executive leadership, bridging Operational Technology (OT), Information Technology (IT), industrial data platforms, cloud technologies, and emerging digital capabilities. The objective is to transform manufacturing data into trusted, contextualized, and AI-ready business assets that support operational excellence, regulatory compliance, and long-term innovation.
This position serves as a trusted advisor to Manufacturing, Engineering, Digital, Architecture, Cybersecurity, Data, and Executive Leadership teams, ensuring that technology investments become scalable enterprise capabilities rather than isolated initiatives.
Mission
Build and govern the industrial digital foundation that enables Sanofi to accelerate smart manufacturing through connected platforms, trusted industrial data, and emerging technologies.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership
Define the long-term vision and roadmap for Industrial Digital Platforms and Smart Manufacturing.
Explore and Evaluate technology trends and translate innovation into practical business capabilities.
Support executive decision-making through technical and strategic guidance.
Enterprise Architecture and Platform Governance
Define and govern the reference architecture connecting shopfloor systems, industrial networks, cloud platforms, and enterprise applications.
Establish standards for industrial connectivity, data models, contextualization, and platform integration.
Create reusable architectures, technical standards, deployment models, and governance frameworks.
Industrial Connectivity and Data Strategy
Lead the evolution of Sanofi's Plant Connectivity program.
Drive architecture and standards for IIoT, OPC UA, MQTT, Sparkplug B, Unified Namespace, edge computing, industrial historians, and industrial data platforms.
Ensure industrial data is reliable, contextualized, and reusable across the organization.
Product Ownership and Delivery
Translate business needs into technical capabilities and platform roadmaps.
Guide implementation teams and prioritize strategic initiatives.
Define platform scalability, reliability, security, and operational requirements.
Technology Evaluation and Innovation
Lead assessments, proof-of-concepts, and vendor evaluations.
Drive adoption of Industrial AI, Agentic AI, MCP ecosystems, Digital Twins, AR/VR, simulation technologies, and advanced analytics where they create measurable business value.
Validate technical assumptions and challenge vendor proposals using real manufacturing requirements.
Cross-Functional Leadership
Bridge Manufacturing, Engineering, Digital, Architecture, Cybersecurity, Infrastructure, and Data organizations.
Communicate complex technical concepts to executive leadership and business stakeholders.
Promote alignment across global teams and strategic programs.
Leadership Expectations
The successful candidate will:
Provide technical leadership for global manufacturing transformation.
Influence without direct authority.
Balance innovation with operational reliability and regulatory expectations.
Mentor teams and establish scalable organizational capabilities.
Connect business strategy with technology execution.
Required Expertise
The ideal candidate will demonstrate expertise across the industrial technology landscape, including:
Industrial IoT (IIoT) and Industry 4.0
Industrial Automation and IT/OT convergence
SCADA, Historians, MES, and ERP integration
OPC UA, MQTT, Sparkplug B, and Unified Namespace
Industrial networking and edge computing
Industrial data platforms and cloud-native architectures
Data contextualization and enterprise integration
Industrial AI, Agentic AI, MCP, and Digital Twins
AR/VR and simulation technologies
Enterprise Architecture and Technical Governance
Product Ownership and Platform Strategy
Vendor evaluation and technology roadmapping
Preferred Experience
Extensive experience in pharmaceutical, life sciences, or other regulated manufacturing industries.
Proven success leading global digital manufacturing initiatives.
Strong background in enterprise-scale industrial platforms.
Experience working with executive leadership and cross-functional global teams.
Demonstrated ability to evaluate and implement emerging technologies.
Consulting, architecture, or practice leadership experience is highly desirable.
Critical Success Factors
Success in this role requires a rare combination of capabilities:
Deep technical expertise with hands-on credibility.
Strong enterprise architecture and governance skills.
Executive presence and strategic thinking.
Product ownership and delivery focus.
Ability to bridge IT and OT environments.
Ability to translate innovation into business outcomes.
Strong collaboration and influence across global organizations.
Continuous curiosity and passion for emerging technologies.
Why This Role Is Critical
Sanofi's manufacturing future depends on connected platforms, trusted industrial data, and scalable digital capabilities.
This role provides the leadership required to unify industrial architectures, establish global standards, guide technology investments, and prepare the organization for Industrial AI and next-generation manufacturing.
By connecting the shop floor with enterprise platforms and future digital capabilities, this position enables a secure, scalable, and modern manufacturing ecosystem that supports operational excellence, compliance, and continuous innovation.
#LI-Hybrid #BarcelonaHub #SanofiHubs
Pursue progress , discover extraordinary
Better is out there. Better medications, better outcomes, better science. But progress doesn’t happen without people – people from different backgrounds, in different locations, doing different roles, all united by one thing: a desire to make miracles happen. So, let’s be those people.
At Sanofi, we provide equal opportunities to all regardless of race, colour, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, ability or gender identity.
Watch our ALL IN video and check out our Diversity Equity and Inclusion actions at sanofi.com !
The salary range for this position is :€59.600,00 - €89.400,00 Final compensation will be determined based on demonstrated experience, skills, location, and other relevant factors. Employees may be eligible to participate in Company employee benefit programs.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Data & Digital role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 292 comparable Data & Digital roles across 41 biopharma companies.
Salary context
60 of 292 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function. This posting doesn't list a seniority level, so peers aren't narrowed by seniority either -- the range below may span more levels than usual.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 292 comparable roles
+ 14 more countries
Seniority mix
158 of 292 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
6 of 292 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
Similar opportunities
The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.
How we calculate "similar"
No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.
Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.
0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.