Downstream Business Release Manager

Role: Downstream Business Release Manager
Location: Houston(Downtown), Texas- Hybrid- 4 days onsite

Let’s create our future together at The AES Group!

About The AES Group
The AES Group is a premier technology and engineering consulting company that has been bringing businesses and talent together for over 20 years to deliver innovative solutions that have the greatest positive impact on society. AES has helped over 40 business enterprises, including Fortune 500 companies, engage their customers, empower their employees, and transform their business operations with the power of cloud, data, AI, engineering, and other emerging technologies.

Job Summary
The Downstream Business Release Manager will lead the planning, governance, coordination, and execution of business releases within a large-scale digital transformation program. This role will serve as the primary liaison between business stakeholders, operations, project teams, and technology organizations, ensuring that release scope, priorities, schedules, dependencies, and deployment activities remain aligned with business objectives.

The Release Manager will drive release readiness, stakeholder alignment, risk and dependency management, governance, decision-making, operational readiness, and business adoption. The role will be responsible for ensuring successful release execution while minimizing operational disruption and maximizing business value realization.

Key Responsibilities
Lead end-to-end business release planning and execution across Downstream business organizations.
Develop and maintain release roadmaps, schedules, milestones, and deployment plans.
Partner with business stakeholders to define, validate, and prioritize release scope and business requirements.
Establish and maintain release governance, including status reporting, decision forums, escalation processes, and release readiness reviews.
Coordinate cross-functional teams across business, operations, project management, technology, and other supporting functions.
Identify, track, and proactively manage risks, issues, dependencies, assumptions, and interdependencies impacting release delivery.
Drive release readiness assessments and ensure all business, operational, technical, and organizational readiness activities are completed before deployment.
Facilitate stakeholder communication and ensure timely escalation and resolution of release-related issues.
Support deployment planning and execution while minimizing business and operational disruption.
Coordinate post-release activities, including stabilization, issue resolution, adoption tracking, and lessons learned.
Partner with business and technology teams to drive successful adoption and realization of expected business benefits.
Provide regular executive-level reporting on release progress, risks, dependencies, decisions, and overall readiness.
Ensure alignment between the release roadmap and broader digital transformation program objectives.

Key Focus Areas
Business Release Management
Release Planning & Roadmap Management
Business Scope & Prioritization
Stakeholder Management & Governance
Risk, Issue & Dependency Management
Operational Readiness
Deployment & Cutover Coordination; Cross-Functional Program Coordination
Business Adoption & Change Readiness
Benefits Realization

Required / Preferred Qualifications
Strong experience in Business Release Management, Program Management, Project Management, or Transformation Management.
Experience coordinating complex releases involving multiple business and technology stakeholders.
Strong understanding of release governance, planning, readiness, risk management, and dependency management.
Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, including experience working with senior business and technology leaders.
Ability to manage multiple workstreams, priorities, and dependencies within a large-scale transformation environment.
Strong analytical, organizational, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
Ability to work effectively across business, operations, project, and technology teams.

Nice-to-Have Skills
Technical hands-on experience or strong technical understanding.
Experience working within the Oil & Gas industry, particularly Downstream business functions.
SAP experience, including exposure to SAP-driven business transformation or implementation programs.
Experience with large-scale digital transformation, ERP, or business transformation programs.
Experience supporting complex enterprise deployments, cutovers, or production releases.