Director Enterprise System Standards

Xcel Energy•Minneapolis, MN

1d•$148,400 - $210,733

About The Position

Leads the Enterprise System Standards function within Integrated System Planning (ISP). Accountable for defining and governing the planning-grade standards that establish what the holistic energy system must be capable of doing across Generation, Transmission, Distribution, Gas, DERs, storage, load, and controls. Ensure System Standards are forward-looking and durable supporting investment decisions, ISP studies, and portfolio development, and to foster a build-it-once design basis across planning cycles. Also serves as the operational lead for the multidisciplinary Planning Council, the executive governance body that approves shared futures, assumptions, scenarios, and preferred portfolios across all commodities. This role stewards the forum through the creation and maintenance of charter, cadence, materials, decision process, and follow-through.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Business, Economics, or related discipline; advanced degree in Engineering, Business, Public Policy, or related field preferred.
Minimum of 10 years' utility industry experience, including 5+ years of leadership experience in strategy, standards, or integrated planning.
Demonstrated expertise across two or more of: generation, transmission, distribution, gas.
Experience with scenario-based planning, futures methodologies, and cross-commodity portfolio evaluation.
Proven ability to design and operate cross-functional governance forums, including charter, decision rights, cadence, and action management.
Strong financial and regulatory acumen, including familiarity with rate case and long-term planning deliverables.
Demonstrated organizational, leadership, written, and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence senior executives and multidisciplinary teams without direct authority.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience developing enterprise or system-level standards, planning criteria, or design-basis frameworks.
Familiarity with peer utility approaches to enterprise standards and how such standards are housed, refreshed, and enforced.
Continuous improvement experience, including PD Tree, KPIs, and management-of-change processes.
Previous operations experience with linear or fixed assets.

Responsibilities

Direct the cross-functional and cooperative development, publication, and refinement of enterprise System Standards, including system intent, capability and performance targets, resilience criteria, and the build-it-once design basis. Ensure standards are technology-agnostic where possible, traceable to enterprise strategy and long-term plans, and are consistently described across jurisdictions and planning horizons.
Conduct the multidisciplinary Planning Council as its operational lead. Own the Council charter, operating cadence, agenda pipeline, decision materials, minutes, and action tracking for the Council members consisting of VP, SVP and EVP executive leaders. Coordinate participation and manage re-convening triggers.
Accountable for the System Standards work cycle end-to-end: signal intake, translation into planning-grade standards, governance approval, integration into ISP products, KPI tracking, and scheduled refresh.
Build and lead a multidisciplinary team of engineers, analysts, economists and consultants. Establish clear RACI with enterprise stakeholder groups and develop bench strength through subordinate leadership.
Partner across ISP Integrated Planning (North, PSCo, South), Model Innovation, Operations, Regulatory, Finance, and the Operating Companies to align standards with business objectives, regional needs, and regulatory expectations. Benchmark against peer utilities to inform standards development and governance practice.