Director Business Transformation Process Excellence - Business Transformation - Akron FirstEnergy Headquarters

PROCESS EXCELLENCE – EXTERNAL

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 integrity, safety, reliability and operational excellence. Headquartered in Akron, Ohio, FirstEnergy includes one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, more than 24,000 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, and a regulated generating fleet with a total capacity of more than 3,500 megawatts.

About the Opportunity

This is an open position with FirstEnergy Service Company, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp.

This is a full-time, 4-days a week on-site position located in an office anywhere within the FirstEnergy service territory locations of: OH, PA, NJ, WV/MD or Washington, DC.

About FirstEnergy
FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability, and operational excellence. Our Business Transformation function exists to change how the enterprise operates — not simply to make existing processes marginally faster. We are building a small, senior team that identifies the largest value opportunities across our utilities, builds the business case, and drives the change through to a durable result.

Why This Role Matters

Most transformation value is lost after go-live, when people quietly return to the old way of working. This role exists to prevent that. You will own both how work is redesigned and whether the redesign holds once Business Transformation steps away — which makes you accountable for the durability of everything the function delivers.

Position Summary

The role leads a team of individual contributors across two disciplines. The Process Excellence discipline examines how work is currently performed, partners with the business to understand goals, challenges, and requirements, and determines what needs to change. It facilitates design of the future-state process, identifies improvement opportunities, and develops solutions that optimize performance, efficiency, quality, and the overall stakeholder experience.

The Change Management discipline supports the people side of that change — determining which roles are impacted, what affected employees will need to do differently, and how those changes are enabled through communication, training, and reinforcement.

Business Transformation identifies, assesses, and designs solutions; implementation and long-term ownership reside with the business unit. The Director is accountable for handover quality, and for whether improvements and new ways of working hold after Business Transformation steps away.

Key Responsibilities

- Lead and develop a team of individual contributors across process excellence and change management.
- Set the methods, standards, and quality expectations for both disciplines, and review work to confirm it meets them before it reaches the business unit.
- Allocate specialist capacity across business units according to portfolio prioritization and resolve competing demand with the business unit Portfolio Managers.
- Own the improvement methodology applied across the enterprise, so process work follows one consistent standard rather than varying by business unit.
- Select and/or develop, implement, and continuously improve the process excellence and change management tooling and templates the organization relies on. Confirm that operational baselines and post-implementation measurements are sound, so improvement claims entering value reporting are defensible.
- Own adoption planning and sustainment for initiatives with significant behavior or process change, including anticipating and managing resistance before it stalls delivery.
- Represent both disciplines to executive leadership and steering committees, including defending recommendations that require the business to work differently.
- Identify recurring operational problems that span multiple business units and make the case for addressing them at the enterprise level.
- Own the continuous improvement training and certification curriculum, building process and change capability in the business units so improvement is sustained locally over time.
- Partner with Human Resources on organizational design, role clarity, and workforce impacts arising from redesigned processes.
- Manage third-party process and change partners, including scope, deliverable quality, and value delivered relative to spend.
- Contribute to Business Transformation strategy, portfolio governance, and capability planning as a member of the leadership team.

Required Qualifications

- Bachelor’s degree in business, engineering, organizational development, or a related discipline, plus a minimum of 10 years of relevant work experience. Master’s degree or MBA preferred.
- Relevant work experience includes leading process improvement, operational excellence, or organizational change work.
- Demonstrated experience establishing methods, standards, or quality controls that others apply consistently.
- Experience leading and developing a team of experienced practitioners.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence decision-making with senior leaders.
- Ability to manage a portfolio of concurrent initiatives across multiple business units and deliver accurate work within established deadlines.

Preferred Qualifications

- Working knowledge of both structured process improvement methodology (e.g., Lean, Six Sigma) and formal change management practice (e.g., Prosci/ADKAR), with the ability to set direction and evaluate quality in each.
- Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or Master Black Belt certification.
- Prosci, CCMP, or equivalent change management certification.
- Experience establishing or scaling a process improvement or change capability within an organization, including a training or certification program.
- Prior experience in the electric utility industry or another regulated operating environment, including experience with frontline and field-based workforces.
- Experience leading change in a unionized or collectively bargained environment.

Leadership Competencies

- Influence without authority. Earns agreement from business unit leaders who do not report to this role, and holds a position when a recommendation is unpopular.
- Executive communication and storytelling. Moves fluidly between technical detail and a three-slide executive narrative; defends methodology and numbers under challenge from senior leadership.
- Financial literacy. Frames every recommendation in terms of earnings, capital efficiency, cost-to-achieve, and payback.
- Talent building. Recruits, develops, and retains scarce specialist skills; builds bench strength rather than becoming the single point of expertise.
- Safety-first mindset. Champions FirstEnergy’s safety culture and ensures transformation work never compromises safe operations.
- Bias to outcomes. Measures success by whether the business operates differently, not by initiatives launched or deliverables produced.

What Success Looks Like in the First 12 Months

- One process improvement methodology and one change methodology applied consistently across every business unit.
- Baselines and post-implementation measurement in place for every initiative claiming operational benefit.
- Demonstrated sustainment: improvements delivered earlier in the year still holding at the end of it.
- Growing process and change capability inside the business units, evidenced by trained and certified practitioners outside the Business Transformation team.

Working Arrangements & Requirements

- This position reports to the Vice President, Business Transformation and may be located anywhere within the FirstEnergy service territory. Travel to work locations across the territory is required on an as-needed basis.
- Participation in storm restoration or emergency response duties as assigned may be required.
- Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship.

The market rate for this role is: $ 189,000. Certain locations, including the state of New Jersey and Washington DC, include a 20% differential to account for an increased cost of living, making the pay range for NJ/DC (only) $ 204,000 - 249,000.

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.

FirstEnergy takes a market-based approach to pay, which may vary depending on your location. In addition, your actual base salary will depend on various factors such as your skills, qualifications, and experience.

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