The AI Deployment Strategist owns the AI strategy for one of Fundamental's most strategic accounts. You are the single person accountable for how NEXUS grows inside that enterprise: which business problems it solves next, which executives sponsor it, how value is measured and communicated, and how a first deployment becomes a multi-year, multi-business-unit program.
Where a Solutions Architect owns the technical win, you own the commercial and strategic one. You will operate as the customer's trusted advisor on applied AI, sitting with senior business leaders to map where prediction changes decisions in their P&L, building the case for each new use case, and orchestrating Fundamental's Solutions Architects, Forward Deployed Engineers, Research, and leadership team to deliver against that roadmap. Expansion of the account is your primary measure of success.
This role is based in Houston, embedded with an anchor customer in oil and gas, with regular time on site and in our San Francisco office. You need to already speak the language of the industry: how an operator plans capital, runs its assets, trades its production, and makes decisions across upstream, midstream, and corporate functions. The role suits someone who has spent years advising energy companies on strategy and operations, wants to move from recommending to owning outcomes, and is comfortable being the face of an early-stage company inside a Fortune 100 organization.
Own the account AI strategy: build and maintain a multi-year roadmap of NEXUS use cases across the customer's business units, prioritized by business value, feasibility, and executive appetite
Drive expansion: identify, qualify, and shape new opportunities inside the account, from first conversation through business case, budget, and commercial agreement, working hand in hand with Sales and Fundamental's leadership team
Build and run the executive relationship map: cultivate sponsors at VP and C-level, run steering committees and quarterly business reviews, and turn deployed use cases into internal champions and reference stories
Quantify and communicate value: define the business KPIs for each deployment before it starts, track realized impact against them, and translate model performance into language a CFO acts on
Orchestrate delivery: set priorities for the Solutions Architects and Forward Deployed Engineers assigned to the account, remove organizational blockers across IT, data governance, procurement, and business lines, and keep every workstream tied to the strategic roadmap
Structure the account like a portfolio: run discovery workshops with functional leaders (production operations, drilling and completions, supply chain, finance and planning, commercial and trading, HSE), map decision points to prediction problems, and sequence bets to compound trust and value
Be the voice of the customer inside Fundamental: bring field patterns, competitive intelligence, and unmet needs to Product, Research, and the executive team to shape roadmap and go-to-market
Codify the expansion playbook: turn what works in this account into repeatable frameworks, business case templates, and executive narratives that the wider Applied AI team can reuse across strategic accounts
Travel as needed between customer sites, Houston, and San Francisco
Qualification
Strong commercial and financial acumenOwnership mentalityHumble
Required
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Business, Economics, Finance, Engineering, or a related field; MBA or equivalent is a plus
5+ years of experience in the oil and gas industry, either in strategy consulting (MBB or equivalent) serving energy clients, in corporate strategy or operations at an operator or oilfield services company, or in a strategic account role selling enterprise technology into oil and gas
Working knowledge of how an oil and gas company runs: upstream and midstream operations, capital allocation and portfolio planning, production and cost forecasting, commodity markets, and the organizational structure of a major or large independent
Track record of expanding an engagement or account: turning a single project into a broader program by finding new problems, building the business case, and securing executive sponsorship and budget
Executive presence and structured communication: comfortable leading a room of senior leaders, writing a crisp one-page recommendation, and defending a value model line by line
Strong commercial and financial acumen: able to build a business case, model ROI, and navigate enterprise procurement and budget cycles
Enough technical fluency to be credible with data and ML teams: you understand what a prediction problem is, what data it needs, and how to judge whether a use case is feasible, even if you don't write the code
An existing network of senior relationships in Houston's energy ecosystem is a strong plus
Ownership mentality: you want to be measured on outcomes for the account, not on deliverables, and you are energized rather than daunted by ambiguity
Humble, team-oriented attitude with a bias toward action and doing what is necessary to help the broader team win
