Director, Center of Excellence

Philadelphia Gas Works•Philadelphia, PA

3d•Onsite

About The Position

Director, Center of Excellence – Corporate Planning The Director is responsible for providing strategic leadership, direction, and oversight to the enterprise-wide Center of Excellence (CoE) office within PGW’s Corporate Planning Department. The Director develops and leads the CoE office’s functional responsibilities for deploying and instilling standards, best practices, and capabilities throughout the company driving corporate project, program, and portfolio management; and continuous improvement programming and impacts. This role collaborates across all PGW departments to embed high-impact methodologies, foster cross-functional alignment, and deliver measurable performance improvements that support the organization's strategic goals. Through the oversight and management of PGW’s corporate portfolio of projects and programs the Director will ensure that projects: are aligned with PGW’s corporate strategy; adhere to corporate project, program, and portfolio management standards; and are tracked through consistent metrics and reporting. The incumbent is also responsible for overseeing the corporate continuous improvement program, for identifying, evaluating, selecting, and facilitating implementation of enterprise-wide performance improvement and process optimization initiatives and ensuring projects are delivered on schedule and within budget. The Director will guide team members to: align projects to the strategic plan, define and execute departmental process improvement plans, determine and formulate policies and business strategies, and communicate the status of projects.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management, Organizational Development, Engineering, or other related area of study
7 – 10 years experience related experience overseeing enterprise portfolio management and continuous improvement offices; specific energy utility environment experience performing as a project manager in two or more of the following substantive subject matter areas: Finance/Budget, Rates, Operations, Information Technology, Customer Affairs, Internal Communications and/or metrics/statistical analysis is preferred.
Must be a skilled, experienced leader with ability to establish and maintain a high level of customer trust and confidence, build a quality team-oriented customer focused professional staff in tune with the client’s business needs, lead the entire range of problem-solving work from problem definition to analysis, recommendation, and the development of implementation plans.
Must be willing to lead, coach, and mentor others, and offer opinions to provide guidance on projects.
Must be able to motivate teams and to work in an environment that requires flexibility and adaptability.
Must have the ability to understand the business environment, business cycle, internal processes, projects, and programs that support initiatives, the "big picture" and long-term implications, as well as the short-term impacts and challenges (in short, the context) and how to achieve the strategy through tactical execution and leadership.
Must have interpersonal influential skills with the ability to initiate a sense of change throughout the business; encourage the organization to embrace change, and provide guidance to cross-functional and cross-departmental projects.
Must have written, verbal and presentation communication skills. The ability to interact effectively with all levels of management and across department lines, prepare/deliver formal and informal presentations, correspond internally and externally for all levels of staff, vendors, end-users, etc., is essential.
Must have strong analytical skills with the ability to conduct research, gather relevant internal and external information and synthesize into a cohesive, concise presentation and/or analysis.
Must be computer literate with proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Project, SharePoint, Visio; and accounting software such as Oracle.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree (Master’s), Project Management (PMI/PMP) certification, Six Sigma Black Belt, and Prosci Change Management certification preferred

Responsibilities

CoE Strategic Leadership
Leads the development and execution of the CoE vision, strategy, and roadmap aligned with organizational objectives
Establishes governance frameworks, performance metrics, and operational standards to ensure CoE effectiveness and sustainability.
Develops and manages a team of specialists in process improvement and project management to deliver high-value initiatives.
Promotes a culture of knowledge sharing, continuous learning, and best practice standardization
Partners with department heads and senior leaders to identify enterprise challenges and provide scalable, evidence-based solutions.
Facilitates change management strategies to ensure the adoption of CoE-driven new processes, tools, and practices.
Leads enterprise-wide workshops, training sessions, and capability-building programs.
Defines KPIs and success criteria for CoE initiatives, ensuring delivery of measurable business outcomes.
Conduct regular reviews of CoE impact, reporting progress to executive leadership and recommending adjustments.
Launch internal training programs, capability assessments, and knowledge-sharing initiatives that elevate organizational excellence.
Networks and collaborates with industry contacts to identify, evaluate, and deploy internally new best practices and technologies to support execution of CoE responsibilities.
Cultivate a culture of continuous improvement and innovation across business units.
Communicate the value of the CoE to internal and external stakeholders, as needed.
Project, Program, and Portfolio Management
Defines, maintains, and ensures compliance with standards for enterprise-wide project, program, and portfolio management; oversees administration of corporate project, program, and portfolio management tools and systems, including scope statement creation, schedule management, risk identification, marshaling resources (internal and external), obtaining buy-in, and driving projects to successful completion with aggressive schedules.
Strives to standardize and introduce economies of repetition in the execution of projects and cross-department programs.
Helps direct monitoring of key program and projects throughout PGW through excellence in communication, governance, reporting, and reinforcing standards; maintains consolidated dashboard for corporate projects with metrics and tracking; facilitates alignment and aggregation of the project status reports and consolidates into dashboard for communication with Senior Team; Coordinates and consolidates plan data into management information and specified report formats
Develops and communicates key elements of PGW’s Project, Program, and Portfolio Management strategic vision and execution to the organization.
Identify and establish relationships with various stakeholders and/or other organizations that impact PGW’s project management.
Continuous Improvement
Develops corporate continuous improvement program for: Identifying, evaluating, selecting, and facilitating the execution of performance improvement and process optimization opportunities
Develops corporate continuous improvement program for: Identifying, evaluating, selecting, and facilitating the execution of performance improvement and process optimization opportunities that have the potential to reduce costs, achieve efficiencies, and/or improve quality
Organizing and promoting enterprise-wide improvement efforts by evaluating and developing improved operating procedures and performance measures that assist PGW functional leaders in improving business processes, increasing availability of data for decision-making and enhancing the reliability of financial reporting.
Overseeing submission intake and evaluation system for capturing and selecting proposed improvement initiatives; performs assessments and financial analyses related to proposed ideas that are generated through the intake process
Establishing teams to map current states, perform cost analyses, recommend improvements, develop implementation plans and facilitate implementation.
Oversee program and systems for administering corporate policy and procedures
Ensures all corporate policies and procedures are tracked within the corporate system
Ensures regular reviews of existing policies and procedures to update for accuracy and compliance
Supports the development of new policies and procedures, in alignment with performance improvement and process optimization initiatives
Oversees staff responsible for managing elements of various improvement initiatives including but not limited to:
Coordinating the activities of teams as they relate to performance improvement and process optimization initiatives.
Networking and collaborating with industry contacts to evaluate best practices and make recommendations for performance improvement and process optimization while retaining safety and reliability at an acceptable risk levels;
Assisting in implementing changes, monitoring and measuring impacts in order to assimilate metrics reporting to determine successes/failures
Coordinate with Finance Department to standardize financial analysis
Personnel Management
Coaches staff and team members on standardized project management and process optimization methodologies, assuring proper and consistent application of the principles across all initiatives
Ensures subordinates are properly trained and adhere to company policies, practices, and procedures (including collective bargaining agreement when applicable); monitors performance, sets goals, evaluates and disciplines as needed
Assesses subordinate needs, monitors performance, sets goals, evaluates and disciplines ensuring subordinates are well equipped to meet and/or exceed job expectations.
Finance & Accounting
Develops the operating and capital budgets for assigned unit and helps prepare final budget recommendations with variance explanations and metrics for submission to Finance and Executive Staff.
Develops and maintains appropriate expenditure tracking systems for standard work needs and specialized project work needs; allocates unit project budgets consistent with PGW’s strategic operating plans; develops justification for all capital projects and for all monthly variances for the operating budget.
Other Related Functions
Keeps abreast of new technology within the industry; evaluates their potential application at PGW; makes recommendations for upgrading and/or new implementation for improved cost efficiency, productivity, internal and external customer service, etc.
Identifies industry trends and monitors relevant economic indicators translating them into implementable programs that drive the organizations improvement initiatives with a focus on innovation.
Performs other special projects and assignments as directed.