IT Business Partner- Exploration

POSITION SUMMARY:

The primary responsibility of the IT Business Partner for Exploration is to serve as the central relationship owner between Talos Exploration teams and the IT organization. This role translates exploration objectives into clear technology demand, shapes and prioritizes a value-based roadmap with Exploration leadership, and ensures delivery teams understand the business context, constraints, and measures of success. The Business Partner drives end-to-end intake through value realization by coordinating stakeholders, clarifying requirements, aligning scope and funding, and communicating status, risks, and decisions. In addition, the Business Partner serves as the front door for Exploration-facing IT issues by triaging incidents and service disruptions, confirming business impact and urgency, and coordinating day-to-day incident and problem management through the broader IT support organization to drive timely resolution and root-cause follow-up. The position is accountable for improving the day-to-day experience of Exploration partners through pragmatic process, data, and digital solutions while maintaining alignment with Talos IT standards, cybersecurity requirements, and portfolio governance.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:

This position is responsible for leading the IT business partnership for Exploration, including but not limited to:

• Own the day-to-day relationship with Exploration leaders and serve as the primary IT point of contact for exploration technology and digital needs.
• Lead structured demand intake and discovery (problem framing, current-state understanding, constraints, and desired outcomes) across Exploration functions.
• Translate exploration priorities into a clear, value-based technology roadmap in partnership with IT product, delivery, data, and infrastructure teams.
• Facilitate cross-functional alignment (Exploration, Subsurface, Land, Finance, Supply Chain, Legal, and IT) on scope, sequencing, dependencies, and decision rights.
• Define business requirements and acceptance criteria, ensuring solutions support exploration workflows (e.g., prospect generation, seismic interpretation, well planning) and are aligned to data standards.
• Drive adoption and change management for delivered capabilities, including stakeholder communications, training coordination, and feedback loops for continuous improvement.
• Advise Production Operations leaders and end users on practical AI and reporting use cases; develop, prioritize, and guide adoption of Copilot and Power BI solutions that improve decisions, efficiency, and operational outcomes.
• Partner with IT portfolio governance to size and sequence demand, support business case development, and align funding to expected value (e.g., prospect maturation, cycle-time reduction, decision quality).
• Coordinate with cybersecurity, data governance, and compliance stakeholders to ensure exploration solutions meet Talos standards and risk expectations.
• Identify process and data opportunities that improve exploration effectiveness (data quality, interpretive efficiency, prospect cycle time, decision traceability) and translate them into actionable initiatives.
• Track delivery health and partner satisfaction, escalating risks, scope changes, and tradeoffs with clear options and recommendations.
• Establish and monitor outcomes and KPIs for Exploration-facing initiatives and ensure benefits realization is measured and communicated after go-live.
• Maintain a strong understanding of Exploration systems and data (subsurface applications, seismic repositories, interpretation, well planning, economic evaluation, and technical assurance) to guide solution design discussions.
• Triage Exploration-facing IT issues (application performance, access, data availability/quality, and integration incidents), confirm business impact and urgency (e.g., interpretation milestones, peer reviews, prospect deadlines), and ensure accurate logging, prioritization, and routing to the appropriate IT support teams.
• Coordinate day-to-day incident and problem management for Exploration, including driving updates, facilitating handoffs across IT teams and vendors, identifying recurring issues, and ensuring root-cause and corrective actions are captured and communicated.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with vendors and internal delivery teams to ensure responsive support, clear accountability, and continuous improvement for Exploration services.

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelors degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Business, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of relevant experience partnering with Exploration/Subsurface teams in an E&P environment, including delivery of medium-to-large technology-enabled initiatives; demonstrated strengths in stakeholder management, requirements definition, and change adoption. Experience with Lean/continuous improvement practices is an advantage.

QUALIFICATIONS & SKILLS:

• Strong business partnership mindset: listens, clarifies, and translates exploration needs into actionable IT work.
• Knowledge of upstream Oil & Gas Exploration/Subsurface processes and systems (e.g., seismic interpretation, prospect maturation, well planning, technical assurance, and subsurface data management).
• Ability to frame problems and define outcomes, KPIs, and acceptance criteria; comfortable working with data and process detail without losing the business narrative.
• Strong planning discipline with the ability to manage a pipeline of demand and coordinate dependencies across multiple delivery teams.
• Practical problem solving, including root-cause analysis and continuous improvement orientation.
• Clear communicator with the ability to engage executives, field personnel, and technical teams; strong facilitation and conflict-resolution skills.
• Influence and negotiation skills; able to drive alignment on tradeoffs (scope, schedule, cost, risk) with Exploration and IT leadership.
• Working knowledge of project/product delivery concepts, service management, and governance; able to navigate delivery status, risk, and escalation paths.
• Familiarity with IT service management practices (e.g., incident, problem, and change management) and working effectively with a service desk and tiered support model.
• Self-directed with strong ownership from intake through value realization; comfortable operating in ambiguity and driving to decision.

CERTIFICATES & LICENSES:

• None required; relevant certifications (e.g., PMP, Lean/Six Sigma) are a plus.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Primarily office work; must be able to sit for extended periods and use hands/arms for repetitive motion (keyboard/mouse).
• Ability to travel as needed for business meetings and project activities.