Associate Manager, Innovation & Operational Excellence Full Time NEW

Job Description – Procurement AI Specialist

PFI Innovation center India is an exciting new innovation center. We’re building a future that helps people live better lives longer— and we’re looking for bold thinkers and team players to help us do it. Here, you’ll tackle complex challenges, collaborate with brilliant minds across the globe, and grow your career while helping millions achieve financial security.

a Purpose Driven Company – 150 Years

While the PFI brand is new to India, you’ll be a part of the Prudential Financial, Inc. family. Founded in 1875 in Newark, New Jersey, we serve 50 million customers across more than 50 countries. With $1.334 trillion in assets, we’re a global leader in institutional asset management. The 2nd largest life insurer in the US and the 9th largest institutional global asset manager.

At PFI India, you’ll find a high-performance culture that’s flexible, collaborative and grounded in respect. We engage with candor, take calibrated risks, and hold ourselves accountable — always focused on delivering for our customers. It’s the standard we choose every day as we grow, perform, and win as one team.

We offer valuable leadership, mentoring and learning opportunities, paired with the flexibility and support to help you thrive.

Whether you’re just starting out or ready to take your next step, we’ll help you grow with purpose and do the best work of your career.

The Procurement AI Specialist will play a pivotal role within the Digital Innovation and Operational Excellence team in the Procurement organization. We are looking for a technical architect who can bridge the gap between fragmented legacy systems and modern AI-driven workflows. Your primary mission will be to design the “data connective tissue”—using Dataverse, Snowflake, API integrations, etc.—to power automated procurement solutions and intelligent agents within an enterprise-governed environment. The role combines analytical thinking, process optimization, and innovative technology application to deliver efficiency, cost savings, and improved user experiences across procurement operations.

Key Responsibilities

Data Architecture & Integration

• Design and maintain Dataverse environments to serve as the single source of truth for procurement automation projects.
• Build and manage API connections (Custom Connectors) to ingest data from disparate systems into the Power Platform ecosystem.
• Leverage Snowflake to access enterprise data warehouses, ensuring seamless data flow for real-time procurement reporting and AI model grounding.
• Map complex data schemas across ERP systems (Ariba, SAP, etc.) to ensure interoperability between legacy data and new digital tools.

AI & Automation Execution

• Design, build, and harden automation workflows using Power Automate, Power Apps, and Copilot Studio that operate reliably across development, UAT, and production environments.
• Implement Generative AI capabilities that are grounded in enterprise data sources and constrained by governance, security, and audit requirements typical of regulated financial services environments.
• Work directly with IT, Cybersecurity, and Architecture teams to translate security and data‑privacy requirements into viable technical designs, adjusting solutions as needed to meet approval thresholds.
• Troubleshoot integration and automation failures across environments, identifying root causes related to data quality, authentication, throttling, or downstream system behavior.

Process Optimization & Operational Excellence

• Deconstruct existing procurement workflows to identify where automation is viable and where manual intervention must remain due to policy, risk, or data limitations.
• Translate operational requirements into detailed technical specifications that developers and analysts can execute without re‑interpretation.
• Own documentation that reflects how solutions actually behave in production, not just how they were designed to work.
• Lead UAT activities end‑to‑end, resolving data discrepancies and logic gaps surfaced by business users prior to release.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree: Computer Science, Information Systems, Supply Chain Technology, or a related field.
• Experience: 3–6 years in Digital Transformation, System Integration, or Business Technology—ideally within a Global Capability Center (GCC) or highly regulated financial services environment.
• The “Integration” Stack: Proven hands-on experience with Microsoft Dataverse, API Management (REST/SOAP), Snowflake, and integration with legacy platforms.
• Automation Mastery: Advanced proficiency in Power Automate (specifically complex cloud flows and custom connectors), Copilot Studio and Power Apps.
• AI & Prompting: Familiarity with deploying LLMs within enterprise guardrails and optimizing prompts for structured data extraction.

Skills And Competencies

• Systems Thinking: The ability to see how data moves across a global enterprise and identify where the “breaks” occur.
• API Fluency: Comfortable working with JSON/XML and understanding authentication protocols (OAuth, API Keys) within a corporate network.
• Problem Solving under Governance: The ability to find creative “builder” solutions within the constraints of enterprise-approved tools.
• Stakeholder Management: Ability to translate “technical plumbing” concepts into “business value” language for procurement leadership.
• Data Integrity Focus: A relentless attention to detail regarding data mapping, governance, and audit trails.
• Change Management & Agility: Comfortable navigating ambiguity and driving adoption of new technologies and processes.
• Communication & Storytelling: Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to translate complex concepts into clear, engaging messages.