Our Company
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) is a not-for-profit international regulatory authority whose mission is to assure the effective and efficient reduction of risks to the reliability and security of the grid. NERC develops and enforces Reliability Standards; annually assesses seasonal and long‐term reliability; monitors the bulk power system through system awareness; and educates, trains, and certifies industry personnel. NERC’s area of responsibility spans the continental United States, Canada, and the northern portion of Baja California, Mexico. NERC is the Electric Reliability Organization (ERO) for North America, subject to oversight by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and provincial authorities in Canada. NERC’s jurisdiction includes users, owners, and operators of the bulk power system, which serves nearly 400 million people.
Our Mission
The vision for the ERO Enterprise, which is comprised of NERC and the six Regional Entities, is a highly reliable and secure North American bulk power system. Our mission is to assure the effective and efficient reduction of risks to the reliability and security of the grid.
Your Impact
The Operational Excellence Director is a newly created role responsible for designing, executing, and scaling NERC’s operational excellence and process improvement capability. This role owns the development, implementation, and measurement of operational excellence practices that improve efficiency, reduce operational risk, and strengthen sustainability across Shared Services, with a long‑term goal to scale organization‑wide.
The Operational Excellence Director partners with NERC leaders to translate strategy into executable improvement initiatives, ensuring efforts are not only well‑designed but implemented, adopted, measured, and sustained. This role establishes the frameworks, tools, governance, and performance insights required to drive disciplined execution and continuous improvement.
This is both a strategic and hands‑on role. The Director serves as thought leader, coach, and practitioner, directly leading execution of select high‑priority initiatives while coaching leaders and teams to build durable operational excellence capability.
Your Role
- Champion, operationalize, and sustain a culture of continuous improvement across NERC.
- Promote a culture of continuous improvement through experimentation, learning, and disciplined problem-solving, ensuring learnings translate into implemented improvements.
- Pilot, implement, and evaluate new improvement methods, frameworks, and technologies (e.g., automation, analytics, AI‑enabled tools), tracking effectiveness and adoption.
- Ensure standardization is implemented where appropriate, while monitoring flexibility, adoption, and long‑term sustainability.
- Build NERC’s Operational Excellence Framework
- As a newly created role, establish and mature NERC’s operational excellence and process improvement framework, including core methods, standards, and routines.
- Operationalize core methods, standards, tools, and routines for consistent execution.
- Develop, deploy, and maintain playbooks, templates, and guidance for organization‑wide use.
- Establish governance, prioritization, and review routines for improvement efforts focused on consistency, reliability, and risk reduction.
- Performance and Insight Generation
- Partner with leaders to define, implement, and maintain KPIs aligned to strategy, Shared Services performance, risk indicators, and reliability expectations.
- Monitor, analyze, and report on operational performance against targets and benchmarks.
- Use trend analysis and performance data to proactively surface risks, improvement opportunities, and decision points.
- Translate performance insights into actionable recommendations and follow through on execution.
- Design, implement, and iterate dashboards and scorecards that track performance, emerging risks, and execution progress.
- Strategy Execution & Transformation Enablement
- Translate strategic priorities into executable improvement initiatives, complete with timelines, ownership, and success measures.
- Lead prioritization and sequencing of high‑impact opportunities to ensure capacity is focused on the highest value work.
- Drive execution strategies that reinforce accountability, remove barriers, and accelerate adoption.
- Track implementation progress and adjust execution plans to ensure delivery of intended outcomes.
- Coach & Enable Leaders and Teams
- Partner with senior leaders and functional heads to co‑create, execute, and sustain the Operational Excellence roadmap.
- Serve as a strategic execution advisor to the VP of People & Operations and the COO, ensuring OE initiatives are integrated, delivered, and measured.
- Facilitate and lead working sessions and workshops that result in clear decisions, executed actions, and measurable improvement.
- Coach leaders and teams through execution challenges, reinforcing ownership, accountability, and results.
- Lead change enablement efforts, tracking adoption and embedding improvements into daily operations.
- Train and mobilize internal OE champions, monitoring capability growth and impact.
- Execute Priority Improvement Work
- Serve as hands-on practitioner on a limited number of critical process improvements.
- Conduct process mapping, data analysis, root cause diagnosis, and solution design with an emphasis on risk mitigation and error reduction.
- Ensure improvements are documented, implemented, and sustained.
- Measure and Communicate Impact
- Track and validate improvement results, including risk reduction, cycle time, quality, cost avoidance, and capacity gains
- Build a portfolio of success stories to demonstrate impact and inspire organizational pull.
- Share best practices and lessons learned across Shared Services and other business units.
Core Competencies, Skills & Behaviors
The Operational Excellence Director demonstrates the following integrated competencies, skills, and behaviors to drive disciplined execution, continuous improvement, and sustained performance outcomes:
Strategic Thinking & Execution
- Translates strategy into owned, executable initiatives with defined outcomes and timelines.
- Balances capability building with delivery of measurable, near‑term results.
- Anticipates and actively manages execution risk to protect outcomes.
Stakeholder Partnership & Influence
- Builds strong, trust-based relationships with senior leaders, functional heads, and cross-functional partners.
- Influences decision-making and alignment without formal authority by using data, logic, and credibility.
- Navigates differing priorities and perspectives to achieve shared outcomes.
Continuous Improvement & Process Excellence
- Applies Lean, Six Sigma, or related methodologies with rigor and pragmatism to solve complex operational problems.
- Identifies inefficiencies, root causes, and failure points within processes and designs sustainable improvements.
- Champions standardization where appropriate while respecting functional realities and constraints.
Performance Measurement & Insight Generation
- Partners with leaders to define meaningful KPIs aligned to strategic objectives, operational performance, and risk considerations.
- Analyzes trends and patterns to generate actionable insights rather than simply reporting metrics.
- Uses insight to drive decisions and corrective action.
Change Enablement & Leader Coaching
- Coach leaders and teams through change by building understanding, ownership, and capability.
- Facilitates workshops, working sessions, and problem-solving forums that create clarity and alignment.
- Ensures improvement efforts are adopted, embedded, and sustained beyond initial implementation.
Data-Informed Decision Making
- Uses data and structured analysis to guide problem-solving and prioritize improvement opportunities.
- Simplifies complex or ambiguous information into clear recommendations and next steps.
- Encourages fact-based discussions while recognizing when judgment and experience are required.
Innovation & Emerging Technology Awareness
- Stays informed on emerging improvement methods, digital tools, automation, and AI-enabled capabilities relevant to operational performance.
- Identifies opportunities to pilot and scale tools that enhance efficiency, quality, and decision-making.
- Approaches innovation with discipline, focusing on business value and adoption rather than novelty.
Driving Urgency & Sustained Execution
- Demonstrates a clear bias for action and follow‑through.
- Establishes clear ownership, expectations, and accountability mechanisms.
- Ensures initiatives are completed, embedded, and sustained.
Qualifications
The successful candidate will have at a minimum:
- Bachelor's Degree in Business, Engineering, Operations, or a related discipline
- Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification required – demonstrating advanced problem-solving capability and a high level of commitment to continuous improvement and operational excellence
- 7-10+ years of experience in operational excellence, process improvement, or performance improvement
- Experience designing or implementing process frameworks, KPIs, or performance measurement systems
- Strong facilitation experience guiding groups through mapping, analysis, and decision-making
- Demonstrated ability to coach leaders and teams on OE concepts and tools.
- Excellent communication, stakeholder engagement, and influencing skills.
- Experience supporting efforts that involve risk reduction, compliance, reliability, and/or quality improvement.
- Background working in distributed or hybrid organizations
- Strong balance of strategic thinking and hands-on execution.
Other
- A background check will be conducted prior to employment.
- In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification document form upon hire.
- This position has been classified as exempt.
- The position may be based remotely but must be able to travel to NERC offices or meeting locations if needed. Reimbursement of travel expenses will be in accordance with the company’s travel and expense reimbursement policies.
Our Culture Declarations
- Everyone at NERC is a leader.
- We are accountable personally and organizationally to deliver on commitments.
- We develop ourselves and people in the organization to ensure that NERC realizes its strategic objectives.
- We are resilient and adaptable to the challenges and needs of the business and our team.
- We exude a growth mindset and empower teams to take risks.
- We build collaborative relationships within NERC, the ERO, and the stakeholders of NERC.
- We exemplify NERC cultural behaviors:
- Reward high-quality, creative, and innovative work
- Attract, engage, and retain top talent
- Value and respect diverse perspectives
- Provide a safe, inclusive, and collaborative work environment
- Form strong relationships within the company, and with the ERO Enterprise
- We demonstrate curiosity in a wide variety of areas and are open to exploring new situations, knowledge, and opportunities for growth and development.
- We demonstrate an anticipatory mindset, preventing problems and building contingencies where appropriate.
- We are champions for diversity and inclusion, seeking out and values diverse perspectives.
- We value well-being, prioritizing collaboration, engagement, and connection among our team.