EMS SCADA Program Director

About us

National Grid is hiring a Director of EMS SCADA (Energy Management System / Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) for our Emergency Management Services department. This role can be based in either New York or Massachusetts.

Every day we deliver safe and secure energy to homes, communities, and businesses. We are there when people need us the most. We connect people to the energy they need for the lives they live. 

The pace of change in society and our industry is accelerating and our expertise and track record puts us in an unparalleled position to shape the sustainable future of our industry. To be successful we must anticipate the needs of our customers, reducing the cost of energy delivery today and pioneering the flexible energy systems of tomorrow. This requires us to deliver on our promises and always look for new opportunities to grow, both ourselves and our business.

Job Purpose

Lead the delivery of a new EMS SCADA (Energy Management System / Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) platform. The EMS platform is a mission critical system responsible for monitoring and controlling real-time operation of the power grid across National’s Grid Massachusetts and New York regions. This role will drive the delivery of a program to replace and modernize our systems for real-time grid monitoring, control, data acquisition, and operational visualization.

The Business Lead for the EMS Replacement Program will serve as the primary bridge between Operations, IT, and external technology partners to deliver a modern, secure, and highly reliable EMS for National Grid. This role ensures: 1) business requirements are fully understood, translated, and implemented; 2) driving operational readiness, stakeholder alignment, and value realization from the new EMS platform; and 3) successful delivery and implementation of the new EMS platform.

The ideal candidate brings deep knowledge of utility operations, strong program leadership capabilities, and demonstrated experience translating business needs into actionable technical work with IT and vendor teams.

Key Accountabilities

Program Leadership & Strategy

• Lead the delivery of the EMS SCADA system deployment, replacing legacy grid control and monitoring platforms while ensuring seamless operation of the power network, meeting tomorrow’s needs of the control room and broader electric business.
• Define and maintain the business vision, success criteria, and value roadmap for the new EMS platform. Act as a coordinating point to provide business insights from across US electric business, including benchmarking and future improvement opportunities. As part of this, proactively engage in knowledge sharing with other utilities and industry partners to leverage best practices.
• Represent control room operators, grid planners, reliability engineers, and other operational stakeholders. Supporting both communication/engagement with senior leaders as well as operators and users.
• Partner closely with the IT and operations leadership to ensure scope, schedule, and deliverables align with operational needs.
• Manage contracted Business Integrated support and internal dedicated resources, coordinate and align matrixed business resource who are supporting the program to ensure effective project delivery.

Continuous Improvement & Value Delivery

• Manage and track program progress against schedule, budget, and key performance indicators to ensure successful delivery. Seek opportunities to expedite program delivery where / when possible.
• Ensure that dependencies and risks are tracked and accounted for including but not limited to business process, resource management, and data management/transformation.
• Track and measure improvements in reliability, situational awareness, operator efficiency, and system performance post-deployment as well as drive enhancements and optimizations during stabilization and early lifecycle operation.

Business Requirements & Design

• Lead the definition, documentation, and validation of detailed business and functional requirements, including SCADA, telemetry, alarms, real-time analytics, model management, and situational awareness.
• Facilitate workshops with operators and SMEs to ensure the new EMS supports all operational workflows (real-time, day-ahead, outage coordination, reliability tasks).
• Support solution design reviews to confirm that vendor and IT designs match required operational capabilities.

Stakeholder Engagement & Change Leadership

• Act as the voice of the business throughout design, build, testing, and deployment phases.
• Communicate program progress, risks, and decisions to executive sponsors and operational leadership.
• Develop and drive change adoption strategies, including communications, training, and transitioning operators from legacy EMS to the new platform.

Implementation & Testing Oversight

• Support IT and vendor teams in planning and executing system integration testing (SIT), factory acceptance testing (FAT), and site acceptance testing (SAT).
• Oversee business participation in user acceptance testing (UAT), scenario simulations, and operator training.
• Ensure operational readiness—procedures, playbooks, staffing, training, and failover processes are prepared prior to cutover.

Risk & Compliance Management

• Identify operational risks related to system changes and work with cybersecurity, compliance, and reliability teams to mitigate them.
• Ensure the new EMS meets NERC CIP requirements and aligns with industry best practices for reliability and resilience.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and at least 10 years of experience as a business leader managing cross-functional teams and change programs, including delivering complex programs across multiple business units and driving a culture of high performance, continuous improvement, and quality.
• Significant experience commissioning/managing large-scale technology projects and programs of work within the electric utility operations environment, ideally with EMS SCADA or similar grid control systems.
• Strong track record of managing key stakeholders at senior levels in a large publicly listed organization during a change program to achieve tangible results and value.
• Experience navigating dynamic political and regulatory environments, including familiarity with compliance / reporting.
• Strong understanding of the electric utility operations, including roles of key partners (e.g., ISO/RTO, NERC)
• Strong leadership capabilities to lead, motivate, and develop departmental capabilities and future leaders.
• Excellent problem-solving and strategic skills.
• Demonstrated ability to lead multi-functional teams and deliver project results comprehensively and on time.
• Ability to communicate and work with people at all levels and across organizational boundaries, including.
• A valid driver’s license with a safe driving history that meets National Grid’s Safe Driver policy is required.

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