Vice President Enterprise Technology
FirstEnergy Corp

Job Info

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JOB DESCRIPTION

FirstEnergy

FirstEnergy at a Glance

We are a forward-thinking electric utility powered by a diverse team of employees committed to making customers' lives brighter, the environment better and our communities stronger.

FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Headquartered in Akron, Ohio, FirstEnergy includes one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, more than 24,500 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, and a regulated generating fleet with a total capacity of 3,780 megawatts.

About the Opportunity

This is an open position with FirstEnergy Service Co., a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. [SC00]

Position Summary

The Vice President, Enterprise Technologies is an integral member of FirstEnergy's Shared Services Team. The leader's significant contribution will include leadership and influence beyond IT. The Vice President, Enterprise Technologies contributes to the responsible stewardship of the company's core values, people, and assets, including promoting diversity, equity, inclusion and a welcoming culture. They are expected to sustain a tone that embraces best practices embodying the company's core values and serve as a catalyst and facilitator in shaping the ongoing continuous improvement spirit of the company and the continued execution of FirstEnergy's digital transformation.

The Vice President, Enterprise Technologies will evaluate and deploy innovative information technologies and embrace forward-thinking perspectives in order to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead and doing so with the highest integrity. The Vice President, Enterprise Technologies has the responsibility to transform FirstEnergy to a more integrated, contemporary, and state-of-the-art company that leverages technology and data as the key enabler to becoming a premier electric company.

The Vice President, Enterprise Technologies leads an organization that designs, builds and delivery's the end-to-end technologies, services, platforms, and applications for the following:

Corporate Platforms, such as HR, Finance, Legal, etc.

Data Center Services

Voice, Video and Data Platforms & Services

End User Platforms & Services

Enterprise Platforms & Services

Data & Analytics

Enterprise Architecture & Engineering

Priorities and Major Responsibilities

• Define the organization's overall technology vision, strategy and roadmap, ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Stay informed about emerging technologies and assess their potential impact on the organization.
• Prioritize technology investments and allocate resources effectively.
• Develop and implement a long-term technology plan to support the organization's growth and innovation.
• Partners with functional leaders and various business stakeholders to ensure their goals and objectives are achieved through enterprise technology enablement
• Lead diverse teams of technologists, including the administration of personnel and budget to ensure maximum effectiveness and quality of service delivered, as well as cultivating an inclusive culture that emphasizes collaboration, continuous improvement, continuous learning, and commitment to excellence.
• Build and manage a high-performing team of IT professionals.
• Develop and implement technology and data policies, standards, and procedures.
• Ensure the security and reliability of the organization's technology infrastructure, applications, and services.
• Identify and champion new technologies that can improve efficiency, create new products or services, or gain a competitive advantage.
• Foster a culture of innovation within the technology organization and enterprise wide.
• Lead research and development (R&D) initiatives related to technology
• Partner with other functional areas to explore how technology can be used to solve business problems and create new opportunities.
• Communicate the technology vision and strategy to all stakeholders, including executives, business unit leaders, and employees.
• Collaborate with other departments to ensure that technology initiatives are aligned with business needs.
• Build strong relationships with key vendors and partners.
• Act as a spokesperson for Enterprise Technologies and represent the organization at industry events.
• Provide a streamlined operation to produce results faster, improve quality of output and achieve higher customer satisfaction for internal business units.
• Develop and maintain the blueprint for enterprise architecture and ensure architecture is aligned with the company's operating model, strategic plan goals, and objectives.
• Serve as a trusted partner and service provider to other business units through review, implementation, and sustainability of business-based technology platforms.
• Develop and maintain IT policies, procedures, and best practices across the organization.
• Ensure education, training, and mentoring for staff and management in order to develop and sustain a culture, talent model, and environment that attracts and retains top talent.
• Responsible for design thinking, seeding and nurturing of new digital strategies and applications, and execution of projects.
• Enable the IT organization to eliminate siloes and reduce interdependencies in a way that increases the autonomy of the IT organization in order to better enable the business.
• Overall planning and performance of FirstEnergy's digital portfolio.

Qualifications & Experience

Information Technology Experience

• A minimum of 15 years in a senior Technology leadership role with experience running a variety of IT systems in diverse business and technology environments in complex organizations.
• Demonstrated track record of measuring, tracking, and trending performance data to improve the delivery of efficient and effective IT deployment at the enterprise level.
• Experience in identifying new sources and analytical capabilities around big data while designing with risk and data security as key considerations.
• Experience with IT policy and legal issues.
• Prior experience representing the interests of an organization through interactions with federal, state, and local agencies.

Design Thinking Experience

• Demonstrated success working cooperatively with all parts of a company to engage in co-identifying, designing, and co-developing new IT solutions and processes.
• Has ideally led a digital transformation or at least critical components of a digital transformation.
• Highly adept at actuating the new ways of thinking about applications of IT innovation and digital across an enterprise.
• Understanding of customer segmentation and customer network strategies.
• Experience building alliances to achieve key IT/digitally enabled assets and capabilities.

IT and Digital Organization Development

• Proven experience in building, developing, and coaching IT and digital teams to successful outcomes.
• Experience hiring talent in various IT and digital-related disciplines including design thinking, agile methodologies, and UX/UI design.

Change Management/Project Management Experience

• Experience in management of large, multi-year, complex enterprise software implementations or product development/delivery programs. Ideally these complex programs would have involved a cultural transformation as a key requisite to the implementation of the project.
• Has ideally led a digital transformation or at least critical components of a digital transformation.
• Skilled in overseeing relationships with vendors, contractors and service providers.
• Experience educating Board of Directors and other executives on benefits and risks of new IT related projects.

Industry Domain Experience

• Experience in the electric utility industry is not a requirement.
• The company is open to and encouraging of candidates that bring domain expertise from other 24/7/365, mission critical environments where IT provides the business its core operational backbone and where thereby cybersecurity risk management is paramount.

Education

• Bachelor's degree with preference for emphasis in engineering or computer science disciplines. An MBA is a plus.

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT COMPETENCIES

Strategic Orientation

It is critical that the strategy and objectives of the IT organization align with FirstEnergy's strategic and business goals of the overall organization's various business units. Therefore, the ideal candidate will demonstrate strong business acumen and the ability to understand and be conversant in the key drivers of an organization and have demonstrated a prudent articulation of senior managements' desired outcomes for the customers, business, and employees, as well as embody the company's core values. Candidates shall be disciplined in developing business cases and experienced in upfront strategic planning around information technology and digital program design, i.e., establishing clear linkages between an organization's focus, long term direction and business needs and the design, cost, and purpose of these programs. Moreover, they shall have designed programs that incorporate a clear understanding of other industries, setting service standards and customer expectations around level of service and quality of products.

Results Orientation

The successful candidate shall have demonstrated the ability to define and measure the impact of IT and/or digital programs in terms of business results, employee performance, and internal and external customer satisfaction. The candidate should also have demonstrated the ability to lead programs, deliver, and track project results utilizing highly effective problem-identification and solution skills including the ability to quickly assimilate, analyze, and reach conclusions on information and manage and resolve issues. The ideal candidate shall have demonstrated a successful track record of performance excellence while achieving and sustaining targeted goals for growth, innovation, and continuous improvement.

Change Management

Long term, sustained success in IT program delivery requires a strong ability in change management evidenced by: the ability to view different perspectives, strong skills in conflict resolution and problem solving, experience using measurement and other alternatives as drivers for change, (especially in the absence of a crisis); a keen awareness of the risks and challenges at each step in the conversion/implementation process, as well as contingency planning, and actions to take in anticipation of next steps; and experience in developing detailed models of future-state flow. The successful candidate will have demonstrated the ability to drive change in leadership, culture, and employee experience, and doing so with the highest integrity. The candidate will also have demonstrated the ability to create an environment for change establishing best-in-class processes with a broad vision to guide incremental approaches to implementation and continuous action at all levels of the organization.

Collaboration and Influencing

Success in IT and digital programs and the efficacy of continuous innovation requires leadership by an informed, active, and involved management team. In order to ensure the legacy of the changes, it is important that the candidate is an inspiring leader and visionary with strong collaboration and influencing capabilities evidenced by: the ability to understand and diplomatically deal with issues in a highly matrixed and/or geographically dispersed environment; the ability to synthesize information and impart and encourage a deep understanding of new programs to business unit managers and to influence management to personally lead/adopt a culture of innovation; a willingness to act as a coach with an ambassadorial "touch" to win adopters of the new programs. The ideal candidate should have demonstrated the ability to deliver messages with credibility, executive presence, and polish, and connect with different audiences including board members, all levels of management, staff, peers, and industry contacts.

Experienced Team and Organizational Leadership Capabilities

Because the IT operational plans require cooperation across the organization and contributions by all the organization towards continuous improvement, it is imperative that the candidate have experience leading high-performing IT organizations at large companies, cultivating environments with a shared sense of mission. The successful candidate will have experience creating a sense of team ownership and urgency within the organization as well as impart the ability to take risks, a tolerance for ambiguity, an openness to new experiences, and proven commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion principles. Candidates must demonstrate the ability to attract, develop, and retain high-caliber talent, and will have experience building achievement-oriented teams in a matrixed environment, that have delivered and sustained success in their respective functional areas for the betterment of the whole. The candidate will have a proven ability to lead, develop, and mentor people across all dimensions of the organization, and will have demonstrated the ability to motivate the organization in ways that ensures value for stakeholders while creating cohesiveness and a sense of purpose for all employees.

Benefits, Compensation & Workforce Diversity

At FirstEnergy, employees are key to our success. We depend on their talents to meet the challenges of our changing business environment. We are committed to rewarding individual and team efforts through our total rewards philosophy which includes competitive pay plus incentive compensation, a company-sponsored pension plan, 401(k) savings plan with matching employer contribution, a choice of medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, and life insurance programs, as well as skills development training with tuition reimbursement. Please visit our website at www.firstenergycorp.com to learn more about all of our employee rewards programs. FirstEnergy proudly supports workforce diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, or status as a qualified individual with a disability. No recruiters or agencies without a previously signed contract. Unable to sponsor or transfer H-1B visas at this time.

Safety

Safety is a core value for FirstEnergy and is essential to all of our business activities. We ensure employees have the tools, information, and processes to perform their duties in a manner that assures safety for themselves, their co-workers, our customers and the public. Our goals are to provide a safe work environment, to maintain an accident-free, injury-free workplace, and to promote and maintain public safety. To meet these goals, we dedicate ourselves to achieving world-class safety standards.

Position Classification

Exempt

FirstEnergy Human Resources Team

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