Lead - Automation & AI Enablement at Bridge Talent Management

About the role:

Our client is one of East Africa’s leading FMCG companies, operating in edible oils & fats, food, beverages, home care, personal care, and animal feeds. The company is modernizing its digital backbone, strengthening SAP S/4HANA, and integrating automation and AI into operations, production, supply chain, and corporate functions. The Lead - Automation & AI Enablement will play a key role in accelerating this digital evolution.

Additionally, they will be responsible for designing, developing, and deploying automation, RPA, analytics, and AI/ML use cases across our client's operations from factory floors to support offices.

This is a hands-on technical role suited for a young, high-potential specialist with strong AI/ML and automation skills, capable of building prototypes, deploying real value-driven solutions, and supporting the digital transformation roadmap.

The ideal candidate brings a mix of software automation talent (Python, Power Automate, Automation anywhere), analytics dashboards (Power BI), and experience working around SAP environments (ECC or S/4HANA preferred).

Key Responsibilities:

Automation & AI Roadmap Execution

• Support the creation and rollout of our client's automation and AI enablement roadmap.
• Identify automation opportunities in production, supply chain, finance, HR, sales, and procurement.
• Prioritize high-impact use cases in collaboration with business stakeholders.

RPA & Workflow Automation

• Develop RPA bots using Automation Anywhere or Power Automate.
• Automate repetitive workflows across offices (finance, HR, procurement, logistics).
• Maintain automation scripts, troubleshoot failures, and optimize performance.

 AI/ML & Predictive Insights

• Build machine learning models for forecasting (demand, raw material usage, supply chain).
• Support predictive maintenance and anomaly detection for production machines.
• Develop computer-vision models for quality control (optional but desirable).
• Validate model accuracy and deploy into live environments.

 Systems Integration & SAP Ecosystem

• Integrate automation with SAP S/4HANA, SCADA, WMS, MIS, and ERP environments.
• Support creation of APIs, connectors, and data pipelines.
• Build process automation directly around SAP transactions where relevant.

Analytics & BI Enablement

• Build dashboards in Power BI or SAP BI (Bobj) for operational insights and KPI tracking.
• Automate data extraction, cleaning, and reporting pipelines.
• Enable business teams to make decisions using accurate, timely data.

Process Excellence & Governance

• Document automated workflows, models, and processes.
• Enforce automation governance standards, access control, and security.
• Track ROI, adoption, and tangible value created by each automation project.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work with operations, production managers, finance teams, HR, supply chain, and commercial teams to identify automation and AI opportunities.
• Support change management and onboarding of end-users.

Requirements

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in IT, Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 2 - 5 years of relevant experience
• Certifications in RPA, Data Engineering, AI/ML, or Python are an advantage.
• Hands-on development experience in:
  • RPA: Automation Anywhere  or Power Automate
  • AI/ML: Python (Pandas, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow or PyTorch)
  • Data engineering and analytics (SQL, Power BI)
• Experience in workflow automation, building bots, and deploying ML models.
• Exposure to SAP ECC or S/4HANA, or other ERP integration.
• Experience in manufacturing, FMCG, or supply chain environments is a plus.

Technical Skills

• Python: data wrangling, scripting, ML model development
• RPA: Automation Anywhere or Power Automate
• BI: Power BI, SQL, SAP BI
• Cloud: Azure or AWS fundamentals
• API/Integration experience
• Git, version control, automation testing
• Understanding of SCADA/WMS/ERP systems is an advantage