How the Aluminum Giant’s Tech Chief Is Using AI and Automation to Modernize a $16 Billion Business
Regina Salazar doesn’t do flashy. She doesn’t post viral threads on LinkedIn or drop buzzwords at every turn. But inside Novelis — the $16 billion aluminum recycling heavyweight — she’s been quietly reshaping how the company runs, thinks, and competes in a world barreling toward automation, AI, and tighter sustainability targets.
As Chief Digital and Information Officer, Salazar sits at the intersection of two worlds most companies still treat separately: core IT operations and forward-looking digital strategy. For more than three years, she’s been threading them together into a single fabric. And the results? They’re starting to show.
One Digital Nerve Center for 33 Global Plants
Novelis isn’t some scrappy startup with a few warehouses. It’s a global operation with 33 manufacturing plants across nine countries. Its aluminum ends up in your car, your Coke can, maybe even your airplane wing. Coordinating all of that — the people, the machines, the materials — is a challenge even before you throw in real-time data, cybersecurity, and supply chain shocks.
Salazar’s approach has been all about integration. Not just merging IT teams — that’s table stakes — but weaving digital thinking directly into the core of operations.
“We’re not just enabling technology,” she’s said. “We’re creating platforms for transformation.”
One sentence here. Keep the pace fresh.
From Brazil to the U.S., Salazar has been rolling out digital blueprints that look beyond traditional ERP upgrades and focus more on plant connectivity, edge data, and automation pipelines.
Where Data Meets Aluminum
So what does “digital” actually look like inside a metal company?
Here’s a peek behind the curtain:
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Smart Manufacturing: Sensors and IoT devices across plants feed data into centralized platforms for better decision-making and predictive maintenance.
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AI in Production: Machine learning models now help optimize alloy recipes, predict defects, and minimize scrap — directly boosting output quality.
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Cybersecurity at Scale: With global footprints come global risks. Salazar’s team has overhauled legacy systems with more resilient, cloud-based security layers.
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Sustainability Tracking: Recycled material tracking now integrates directly with data platforms, helping Novelis validate its circular economy claims.
And then there’s the cloud migration work — boring on paper, critical in practice. Much of Novelis’ core infrastructure has moved toward more flexible environments, laying the foundation for advanced analytics and real-time dashboards that didn’t exist just a few years ago.
Leadership Without the Spotlight
It’s not all code and dashboards, though. Salazar’s leadership style plays a big role in the company’s digital lift.
Unlike the stereotypical Silicon Valley tech chief, she leads with calm authority and clarity, not slogans. Her team’s feedback paints a picture of someone who’s methodical but forward-leaning — someone who doesn’t chase every new shiny tool but knows when to bet on emerging tech.
She’s spent the past year building what she calls “digital muscle” across departments — training plant managers on analytics tools, embedding data teams into supply chain units, and encouraging cross-functional experiments.
This isn’t about throwing out the old. It’s about rewiring it to play nicely with the new.
What’s at Stake — and What’s Coming Next
For a company like Novelis, staying still isn’t an option. The aluminum industry is under pressure from all sides — regulatory, environmental, and competitive. And digital capabilities are becoming the hinge on which agility swings.
Salazar’s work is helping Novelis prep for what’s next. The company is already investing in:
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AI-powered energy management to reduce emissions at its largest plants.
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Digital twins that allow engineers to simulate production changes before implementing them on the factory floor.
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Supplier integration platforms to help smooth out raw material fluctuations.
None of this is window dressing. It’s infrastructure-level change.
And while the headlines often go to CEOs or environmental targets, it’s leaders like Salazar who make those ambitions actually executable.
Novelis as a Tech-Driven Industrial Powerhouse?
It’s too early to say whether Novelis will be seen as a digital leader in heavy industry. But the foundation is being laid. One integration. One platform. One machine-learning model at a time.
And that’s kind of the point. Salazar’s playbook isn’t about moonshots or PR grabs. It’s about systemic change — the kind that doesn’t scream transformation, but delivers it anyway.
