natgridProd
Customer Development Director
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About us
National Grid is one of the world’s largest investor-owned energy utilities, with a significant presence across the UK and north-eastern United States. The Group owns and operates critical electricity and gas infrastructure, connecting energy producers with homes and businesses and supporting the reliability and development of the energy system.
The business is organised around five principal areas: UK Electricity Transmission, UK Electricity Distribution, New York, New England and National Grid Ventures. This structure reflects the Group’s focus on regulated energy networks in the UK and US, alongside selected infrastructure investments such as electricity interconnectors.
National Grid’s strength lies in the scale and importance of its energy networks. As electricity demand rises, driven by renewables, electrification and data centres, the Group is investing to expand capacity, strengthen resilience and connect new sources of energy generation and demand.
Investment is a major growth priority. National Grid plans to invest at least £70bn between 2026/27 and 2030/31 across its UK and US networks, supporting energy security, economic growth and the transition to a more electrified energy system.
Role Purpose
The Customer Development Director is accountable for leading the development of customer connection projects from offer through optioneering, development maturity, sanction and transition into delivery.
The role ensures that customer connection projects are developed to a consistent, auditable and robust standard, with credible engineering solutions, clear customer propositions, compelling cost and schedule evidence, and appropriate regulatory, commercial and governance assurance.
The role provides critical support to Executive leadership by creating clarity across a high-complexity, high-volume and fast-changing portfolio. It will establish a clear view of customer portfolio maturity, risks, constraints, options and interventions, enabling better decisions, stronger customer confidence and more predictable transition into delivery.
The role requires engineering rigour and whole-system judgement. An engineering background is preferable, but the essential requirement is the ability to integrate engineering, commercial, regulatory, delivery and portfolio disciplines into sound investment and customer decisions.
Financial control and portfolio responsibility
The role has oversight of a £15-30bn customer development portfolio.
The role is accountable for ensuring robust development-stage cost and schedule propositions, clear investment assumptions, transparent risk positions and credible customer-facing commitments.
The role will work with Finance, Regulation, Portfolio Development, Delivery and PMO to ensure customer development decisions support fair value, effective investment governance, regulatory confidence and deliverable outcomes.
This is a defining leadership opportunity within National Grid Electricity Transmission, at the heart of the UK’s energy transition. This is an opportunity for a senior leader ready to shape the next phase of customer development in one of the UK’s most important infrastructure organisations.
Key Accountabilities
Portfolio leadership
- Lead the development of a £15-30bn customer development portfolio, ensuring clear visibility of scope, maturity, risk, cost, schedule, constraints and delivery-readiness.
- Establish a consistent view of customer development status across regions, projects and strategic customers.
- Ensure customer development activity is aligned to PS&D’s direction towards One Portfolio, One Standard, One Process.
- Provide senior leaders with clear, evidence-led insight into project maturity, portfolio risks, choices and required interventions.
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Customer and commercial leadership
- Lead senior engagement with strategic customers, managing complex conversations on scope, cost, schedule, engineering options, constraints and route to delivery.
- Balance customer ambition with network capability, regulatory obligations, consumer value and credible delivery outcomes.
- Ensure customer propositions are transparent, compelling and grounded in robust engineering and commercial evidence.
- Represent the customer development portfolio in senior internal and external forums.
Whole-system engineering and solution development
- Ensure customer solutions are considered at whole-system level, reflecting the needs of both new and existing network infrastructure.
- Ensure optioneering and development decisions consider deliverability, operability, resilience, sustainability, safety, environmental impact and long-term network outcomes.
- Build confidence that engineering solutions are credible, robust, proportionate and aligned to regulatory and governance expectations.
- Work closely with System Development, Network Design, Delivery and Regulation to ensure development choices are joined-up and capable of progressing into delivery.
Cost, schedule and readiness capability
- Lead the development of stronger cost, schedule, risk and project controls capability across Customer Development.
- Ensure customer projects have clear, credible and appropriately assured cost and schedule propositions before sanction or customer commitment.
- Improve consistency in forecasting, maturity assessment, development documentation and handover quality.
- Support the development of portfolio-wide controls, dashboards and reporting that enable clearer executive decision-making.
Governance, assurance and investment confidence
- Own the assurance of customer development inputs into investment cases, including scope, optioneering, cost, schedule, risk, benefits, delivery assumptions and customer impacts.
- Ensure governance and development evidence are robust, auditable and aligned to BP500-NGET, relevant investment processes and regulatory expectations.
- Strengthen controls across development decisions, escalations, approvals and transition into delivery.
- Support PS&D in building external credibility through disciplined, evidence-grounded portfolio narratives.
People, capability and transformation
- Lead and develop a geographically dispersed Customer Development team through a significant transformation journey.
- Build the capability, confidence and standards required to operate at increasing scale, pace and complexity.
- Create clear expectations for development quality, customer leadership, engineering discipline, cost and schedule ownership, and cross-functional collaboration.
- Role model enterprise leadership across PS&D, working across boundaries to solve portfolio-level challenges.
Knowledge, Experience & Technical Know-How
Essential
- Senior leadership experience in infrastructure, energy, utilities, capital projects, regulated investment, customer solutions, portfolio development or complex programme environments.
- Demonstrable experience of leading high-value, high-complexity portfolios or programmes with significant external, commercial and delivery interdependencies.
- Strong understanding of how technical, commercial, regulatory and delivery factors combine to shape credible investment and customer outcomes.
- Experience leading customer, stakeholder or partner conversations where cost, schedule, scope, risk and deliverability are material.
- Ability to operate within ambiguity, and forge clarity across large, complex and interactive portfolios, including maturity, risks, constraints, readiness and intervention requirements.
- Experience building or improving governance, assurance, project controls, cost, schedule or development processes.
- Evidence of leading teams through change, transformation or operating model evolution.
- Strong executive communication skills, with the ability to support senior leadership through clear, evidence-led narratives and decision framing.
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Preferable
- Engineering background or equivalent depth of exposure to technically complex infrastructure development.
- Experience in electricity transmission, distribution, generation, energy infrastructure, major construction, transport, utilities, regulated asset management or nationally significant infrastructure.
- Familiarity with regulated investment cases, customer connection frameworks, network development, consenting, optioneering, project governance or delivery assurance.
- Experience working with regulators, government, strategic customers, major investors, developers or delivery partners.
- Exposure to digital, data, PMO and project controls capability development in a capital-intensive environments.
- Appreciation and familiarity with methods of standardization and modularization of infrastructure solutions.
- Demonstrable understanding and application of data-driven insights-led decision making.
- Knowledge of probabilistic forecasting and development of costs, risks, scope and schedules for complex capital projects.
Qualifications
Essential
- Degree-level qualification or equivalent senior leadership experience in a relevant discipline.
Preferable
- Engineering, commercial, project/programme, infrastructure, finance, regulatory or business-related qualification.
- Chartered or equivalent professional status in a relevant discipline.
- Evidence of continued professional development in leadership, major projects, regulated infrastructure, systems thinking, portfolio management or transformation.
Leadership Impact
- Create clarity where portfolio complexity, customer pressure and delivery uncertainty are increasing.
- Build confidence in the credibility of customer development choices.
- Strengthen the bridge between customer ambition and delivery reality.
- Provide high-quality support to Executive leadership through clear, objective and evidence-based portfolio insight.
More information
- Business unit: Portfolio Strategy & Development
- Department: Customer Development
- Reports to: Director, Portfolio Strategy & Development
- Location: Warwick/Hybrid
- Portfolio scale: £15bn to £30bn customer development portfolio
- Direct reports: 3 Direct
- Indirect leadership: c.120
- Role Closing date: Tuesday Sept 15th
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