Director (Strategic Planning & Portfolio Analysis)

Xcel Energy•Denver, CO

About The Position

Design and implement a strategic approach to aggregation and prioritization of the 5-year strategic plan across Operations encompassing the Generation, Transmission, Distribution, Gas and Nuclear organizations. Develop unique methods, evaluation criteria and solutions to assemble, model and prioritize the capital and operations and maintenance budgets for the multi-year planning cycle. Prioritizes the projects and programs across the company portfolios to balance risk, system reliability, resource adequacy, technological innovation, financial investment, customer cost, and executability. Conduct asset and technology lifecycle analysis to inform long-term resource planning and modernization strategies. Provide project management and strategic support on cross-commodity planning and execution. Leads a team of budget planning professionals and analysts. Liaison Operations, the Operating Companies, and CFO organizations to achieve financial and operational objectives.

Requirements

Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering, Business, or related discipline from an accredited college or university.
Minimum of 10 years’ experience required in the utility industry.
Minimum of 5 years of leadership experience, preferably including strategy development and implementation.
Strong financial acumen desired.
Expertise in regulatory finance, regulatory accounting, regulatory rate making, and/or strategic capital budget planning for energy assets.
Demonstrated organizational, leadership, written, and verbal communications skills.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree preferred.
Experience with asset lifecycle analysis, business case development, or strategic investment evaluation preferred.
Project management experience preferred, including cross-function or cross-commodity initiatives.
Preferred experience with accounting and budgeting software tools, such as Unifier, Tamcast, Workbook and/or Power Plan.
Utility Finance Leadership experience.

Responsibilities

Develop, manage, and execute a risk-informed project prioritization process, across all projects in the Operations enterprise, to rationalize projects in the 5-year strategic budget cycle and enable precision in investment decisions.
Influence multi-year budget plans that enable system transformation while balancing system reliability and customer cost, in partnership with Operations.
Perform asset and technology lifecycle analysis to evaluate long-term needs, replacement strategies, and modernization opportunities across multiple Operating Companies and commodities.
Lead strategic cross-commodity project management to ensure alignment, integration, and coordinated execution of major Planning and Operations initiatives. This could include leadership around resource adequacy, AI tools, and strategic regulatory initiatives.
Drive change and produce recommendation through continuous improvement of existing analytical structures and development of strategies to generate financial opportunity and mitigate risk in Company Operations.
Enable a project portfolio that aligns with the strategic objectives of the company, notably successful execution by Operations and regulatory effectiveness by the Operating Companies.
Deliver rate case quality asset and project analytics on capital and O&M budgets for the financial planning cycle, in partnership with Operations, Operating Companies and the CFO office.
Develop robust business cases and frameworks on investment analysis and strategic decisions regarding capital allocation, technology adoption, and resource strategy.
Develop and provide discovery responses and/or written testimony in support of regulatory proceedings.
Seek, propose, and execute innovative ideas for aligning budget creation across the enterprise with common data, processes, and tools.
Benchmark internally across business units, and externally across peer utilities to establish a center of excellence for budget planning and strategic analysis.
Establish partnership with internal stakeholders to facilitate key enterprise strategic discussions including the Planning Summit and Peer Review.
Lead miscellaneous special projects to enhance and expand the effectiveness of the Integrated System Planning organization.