Vice President of Customer Experience

Grant PUD • Ephrata, WA

6d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Vice President of Customer Experience (VP, CX) is an executive leadership role accountable for the strategy, execution, and measurable outcomes of all customer-facing operations at Grant County PUD. Reporting to the Senior VP of Retail Operations and serving on the Executive Leadership Team, this role provides enterprise stewardship for customer service, customer solutions and programs, large and key customer engagement, external communications, and customer experience strategy. The position is intentionally designed to broaden and mature Grant PUD’s enterprise customer ecosystem and to lead customer-facing transformation in a period of rapid regional growth, increasing electrification, rising demand from large industrial customers, and constrained firm energy resources. Success is defined by measurable outcomes and long-term value creation; translating customer needs into scalable, high-quality services aligned with Grant PUD’s public power mission and safety culture.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (Public Administration, Business, Law, Economics, Marketing, Engineering, Communications) or closely related field OR 2 additional years of relevant experience in lieu of degree (ex. do you have 7+ years of senior-level leadership experience)?
• Five (5) years of progressively responsible senior-level leadership (Senior Manager equivalent or above) experience leading customer experience, customer service, or customer operations functions within a service-intensive organization.
• Experience must include leadership within a highly regulated environment, such as utilities, or comparable industries including telecommunications, financial services, transportation, airlines, healthcare, public sector organizations, or similar industries.
• Demonstrated success developing, implementing, and leading customer-facing products, services, programs, or solutions from strategic concept through operation execution, adoption, and continuous improvement.
• Demonstrated strategic, analytical, and results-orientated leadership capabilities including the ability to align customer experience strategies with operational performance, financial stewardship, regulatory compliance and enterprise objectives.
• Proven ability to lead and develop high performing teams, influence organizational culture, build cross functional alignment and successfully drive enterprise-wide transformation and change initiative within complex organizations.

Nice To Haves

• Advanced degree in a relevant field (Public Administration, Business, Economics, Marketing, Law, Engineering, Communications).
• Experience leading customer experience transformations and managing customer-facing programs—spanning digital delivery, AMI/CRM integration, and offerings such as energy efficiency, demand response, renewable energy, or community outreach within a utility or public-sector organization.
• Professional certifications relevant to customer experience or utility management (e.g., CCXP – Certified Customer Experience Professional, APPA Public Power Manager, or similar credentials) are a plus.
• Leadership experience in the electric utility industry.
• Executive level (Vice President equivalent or above) leadership experience
• Professional experience in a publicly owned utility.
• Demonstrated leadership experience in a unionized environment, with the ability to effectively partner with labor representatives and foster positive labor-management relationships.

Responsibilities

• Ability to reliably travel between District facilities, community locations, and stakeholder meetings to lead and support customer experience initiatives across the PUD’s service territory.
• Establish and lead an enterprise-wide customer experience (CX) strategy by integrating customer insights, operational performance, and strategic priorities into a multi-year roadmap with defined outcomes, performance measures, and governance aligned with Grant PUD’s public power mission, values, and safety culture.
• Drive service delivery excellence across all customer touchpoints including customer service, billing, field coordination, and customer programs through the establishment of performance standards and operational controls, decision frameworks, and continuous improvement practices that enhance reliability, responsiveness, and customer outcomes.
• Lead the development, implementation, and governance of customer experience key performance indicators (KPIs), including defining success measures, monitoring trends, and leveraging analytics to drive data-informed decisions that improve operational performance and customer satisfaction.
• Provide executive leadership for customer solutions, programs, and product lifecycle management by defining customer value propositions, prioritizing investments, validating operational readiness, and ensuring services and offerings are customer-focused, financially responsible, compliant with applicable requirements, and scalable.
• Provide executive oversight for customer experience and product strategy associated with Grant PUD’s wholesale fiber network including service design, performance standards, stakeholder engagement models, and customer-focused service delivery strategies.
• Champion technology-enabled customer engagement by partnering with Information Technology and enterprise leaders to set digital CX strategy, govern customer platforms and self-service capabilities, and leverage analytics and emerging technologies to improve adoption, customer engagement, and operational effectiveness.
• Provide executive leadership for engagement with large and key customers, including high load and industrial customers by overseeing customer engagement strategies, contract development, and service delivery approaches that balance customer demand, system reliability, capacity constraints, and risk management considerations, affordability, and service quality customer owners.
• Support enterprise coordination related to grid optimization, energy management strategies, and capacity reservation policies in response to constrained firm energy resources.
• Represent customer experience priorities and strategic initiatives with the Executive Leadership Team, Board of Commissioners, and community stakeholders and external partners by communicating strategy, performance, risks, tradeoffs, and outcomes with clarity, transparency, and credibility.
• Demonstrated commitment to Grant PUD’s mission, vision, values, strategic plan, and Grant PUD/IBEW Local 77 Code of Excellence.
• Understand and adhere to compliance requirements for this position that may include laws, regulations, security guidelines, Grant PUD policies & procedures.
• Actively supports and participates in all aspects of our safety program, including but not limited to: Following all safety policies and procedures. Alerting supervisors and coworkers to unsafe or hazardous working conditions. Reporting any unsafe incidents or close calls within 24 hours to your supervisor; and Accepting feedback from supervisors and coworkers regarding your own safety performance
• Be viewed as a safety champion by demonstrating through words and actions, that safety is our paramount value by actively: Supporting the presence of safety in your Operating Unit (e.g. include safety messages in business conversations; begin meetings as appropriate with a safety minute). Acknowledging compliant safety behaviors and good safety performance from members of your team(s). Ensuring that middle managers are actively supporting their teams in safety efforts such as continuous improvement teams, Safety & Health Improvement Plan (SHIP) responsibilities, hazard identification, metric reporting and compliance, etc.
• In this position, if needed to operate a GPUD vehicle for business purposes, please refer to Vehicle/Asset Usage Policy, IS-TA-POL-001.
• This position requires NERC CIP access, and incumbents must meet and maintain eligibility with the established criteria in the Grant PUD Personnel Risk Assessment Procedure.

Benefits

• Grant PUD’s benefit that may be available if hired, different employee types are eligible for different benefits. Grant PUD — Unified Insurance Program (uip-wa.org)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive