About the role

HARTING is building its new global Digital, Data & AI Hub, the central unit for steering our global digital transformation. As Head of Performance & Portfolio Management, you will build this function from scratch and lead it. Your job is to make sure every digital, data and AI initiative is strategically prioritised, financially controlled and tracked transparently, from business case approval to proven benefits.

You will report to the Head of Digital, Data & AI, with a dotted line to the CFO / Group Controlling. You will build and lead a team of 3–5 people. You will work with stakeholders across business units, functions and countries.

Your responsibilities

• Portfolio & governance: Design the governance framework, run the approval gate for digitalisation requests, and build one integrated roadmap, prioritised by value, feasibility, risk and strategic fit.
• Value & lifecycle economics: Own business cases, benefit realisation and TCO for all digital, IT and AI systems, from investment through operation to retirement.
• P&L & budget: Work with Finance to turn investments, running costs and realised benefits into the P&L. Give quarterly recommendations to continue, scale or stop.
• AI FinOps: Manage AI and cloud costs through token budgets, unit economics and showback/chargeback, and assess savings levers such as model routing, caching and prompt optimisation.
• KPIs & dashboards: Build a Hub-wide KPI framework with dashboards at strategic, programme and project/system level, so that steering is based on outcomes, not activity.
• Vendor economics: Compare vendors and pricing models (cloud, AI models, platforms, licences) by TCO, including lock-in and exit costs. Vendor selection is done together with the Product Owner teams, IT Architecture, Security, Procurement and Legal.
• Team building: Recruit, onboard and develop your team (Portfolio & Roadmap, Business Case & Value, Portfolio Controlling, AI FinOps, Performance & BI) and have it fully working within 18 months.

Your profile

• A university degree in business administration, business informatics, industrial engineering or a similar field.
• At least 10 years in portfolio, programme or performance management, controlling, value management or IT finance, ideally in a complex international organisation.
• At least 3 years of leadership experience.
• Strong financial skills: ROI, NPV, IRR, TCO, budgeting, forecasting, Capex/Opex.
• Proven experience with KPI frameworks, management reporting and decision papers for steering committees in a matrix organisation.
• Good understanding of digital and data products and IT delivery processes; hands-on with Power BI or similar tools.
• Excellent business English (negotiation level) is essential. English is the working language of this international role.

Nice to have

• Experience with FinOps, TBM or application portfolio management.
• Knowledge of how AI and cloud costs work (tokens, run cost, model routing) and experience negotiating with vendors.
• A background in manufacturing, electrical engineering or automotive.
• Experience building a new function.
• German language skills.