Manager, Digital Transformation, Utilities

About the role

The Manager - Digital Transformation, Utilities will serve as the central coordination and execution member for advancing digitalization across distribution utilities within the Grids of the Future portfolio. This is a high-impact, cross-functional role that bridges strategic programme delivery, stakeholder engagement, technology deployment, and institutional capacity building. The incumbent will work closely with distribution companies (DISCOMs), grid operators, government energy ministries, multilateral institutions, technology vendors, and civil society organisations to drive measurable transformation outcomes at scale. The role demands equal command of sector-specific technical knowledge - particularly in distribution utility operations, grid modernisation, software engineering, and energy data infrastructure - and of the human and organisational dimensions of large-scale digital change. The successful candidate will be equally comfortable presenting a roadmap to a utility board, reviewing a technical architecture with an engineering team, negotiating a data-sharing protocol with a regulator, and steering a cross-vendor delivery sprint.

Responsibilities

• Digital Transformation Strategy and Programme Delivery
• Lead the design and execution of multi-year digital transformation roadmaps for distribution utilities, covering smart metering (AMI/AMR), SCADA/DMS upgrades, outage management systems (OMS), and integrated asset management platforms.
• Develop programme charters, milestone frameworks, KPI dashboards, and risk registers aligned with organisational priorities and donor/funder reporting requirements.
• Translate high-level transformation mandates into actionable work plans with clear ownership, resource allocation, and dependency mapping across technology, operations, and regulatory workstreams.
• Track and report programme progress to senior leadership, boards, and international stakeholders; prepare Board-ready briefings, donor reports, and policy submissions.
• Manage budget cycles, procurement processes, and contract oversight for digital initiatives, including vendor selection, SoW review, and performance monitoring.
• Distribution Utility and Grid Digitalisation
• Provide technical advisory and implementation support to distribution utilities on grid digitalisation: smart grid architecture, IoT sensor deployment, SCADA integration, geographic information systems (GIS), and field force automation.
• Advise on regulatory and commercial frameworks for digital utilities: cost-of-service tariff mechanisms, regulatory asset base treatment of digital capex, and benchmarking against international best practice (EU DSO model, India RDSS, African utility digitalisation programmes).
• Support utilities in adopting advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), prepaid metering, distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS), and virtual power plant (VPP) frameworks.
• Facilitate utility-level data governance frameworks - meter data management systems (MDMS), data lakes, and secure data exchange protocols - in compliance with applicable data protection law including the India DPDP Act 2023.
• Assess AT&C loss reduction opportunities through digital interventions including smart billing, automated fault detection, and AI-powered loss analytics.
• Software Engineering Oversight and Technology Delivery
• Engage directly with engineering teams - internal and vendor-side - on software architecture, integration design, API specifications, and release planning for utility digital products.
• Oversee technical delivery of software products, platforms, and integrations: sprint governance, code quality standards, DevOps/CI-CD pipeline management, and technical debt prioritisation.
• Review and provide input on system design documents, technical specifications, and vendor software proposals; ensure proposed solutions are robust, scalable, and fit for utility operating

Additional Information

The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (Global Energy Alliance) The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (Global Energy Alliance) works for a world where everyone has access to affordable, reliable, clean electricity and the means to use it to improve their lives. Our Alliance builds transformative public, private, philanthropic partnerships to end energy poverty and accelerate green economic opportunity. Founded in 2021 by The Rockefeller Foundation, IKEA Foundation, and Bezos Earth Fund, we design innovative projects/programs, unlock finance, strengthen institutions and transform markets, delivering progress anchored in deep community engagement. By uniting actors across the value chain, from households to heads of state, we go beyond individual projects to drive lasting systems change. With work in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, our Alliance aims to reach 1 billion people with clean electricity, prevent 4 billion tons of carbon emissions and create or improve 150 million jobs.

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