Account Manager

JOB SUMMARY

The Account Manager develops, maintains and enhances relationships with interconnected customers and businesses including investor-owned utilities, rural cooperatives, municipal electric utilities, independent power producers, large industrial customers, and economic development and industry associations, and leads Company efforts to identify customer issues for process improvements and improved satisfaction opportunities.  The Account Manager functions as single point of contact between the company and portfolio of transmission connected Stakeholders and Customers. 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develops and implements plans to build customer support and credibility for the Company and its activities.  Facilitates collaborative meetings with customers on agenda topics, relevant issues and measuring and monitoring effectiveness. 
• Develops, maintains and manages positive business relationships with customers' senior level managers and other key decision makers, through understanding customer operations and energy-related applications and concerns.
• Assists Stakeholders in their building/facility expansions by facilitating interactions with corporate personnel regarding energy-related construction issues, substation issues, sub-transmission and transmission issues, changes in their load profiles
• Establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers by communicating proactively through one-on-one meetings, routine phone calls and responding to special requests.  Monitors customers' industries for changing needs.
• Works closely with the Project Management and Field Supervisors groups to coordinate required equipment outages to allow for system changes and upgrades at Stakeholder facilities
• Negotiates with outage coordination department and Stakeholder’s to mitigate risk to customers by identifying opportunities to reduce exposure.
• Minimizes equipment shutdowns by developing a long-term equipment outage schedule for periodic maintenance and capital projects
• Establishes relationships with economic development advocates to ensure customer needs are identified and communicated with the appropriate audiences.
• Ensures that all customer requests are thoroughly explored, reviewed by appropriate management and provided options in a timely manner.
• Monitors legislative and regulatory developments in wholesale electric transmission industry.  Identifies issues that affect company customers, makes recommendations and prepares communications to customers. 
• Maintains the Company customer information in internal systems.  
• Facilitates and leads meetings with various customers and supports company advocacy efforts.  Prepares presentation material dependent on audience and messages to be delivered. 
• Develops or enhances procedures that provide benefits to the company's customers. 
• Provides support to Company departments including assistance in community events, scheduling outages, facilitating meetings and supporting communication efforts.
• Translates external customer requirements to match the Company's systems including outage communications and interconnection requests.
• Coordinates planned equipment outages that impact generation output with generation operators at key substations.  Work with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) facilities to support their ability to operate.
• Maintains and increases personal knowledge of the transmission system and its equipment by participating in tabletop exercises, direct study, seminars, system simulation exercises and field visits.

• Competent in multi-tasking (i.e., ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks, issues or projects that may include high visibility initiatives and require innovation, teamwork and planning).

• Ability to understand and improve processes such as the Equipment Outage Request (EOR) and communication to Stakeholder.

REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Public Administration, Marketing, Public Relations, Communications, or Engineering or relevant, equivalent experience and/or education.
• Minimum of five (5) years of experience communicating and managing relationships with large industrial customers, key associations or utilities.
• Minimum of five (5) years of experience in the electric utility industry.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office, (Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint) Transmission Outage Application (iTOA), OSI Monarch OpenView, Asset Sentry, GIS 
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills, including: the ability to convey complex information clearly, concisely and effectively and a demonstrated ability to create and deliver presentations to audiences of varying knowledge level and size.
• Excellent interpersonal and relationship building skills with an ability to leverage those skills with individuals at all levels internally and externally. 
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate customer service efforts to ensure Company is perceived as offering value added service and solutions.
• Ability to rapidly identify problems, investigate solutions and present options to Company's executive management and external customers. 
• Ability to remain calm and empathetic in difficult situations to actively listen to customer concerns.
• Highly customer-focused with the drive to continually meet and exceed customer needs.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality. 
• Must work independently with minimal supervision.
• Ability to travel for Company business several times per month, including overnight stays for multiple days. 
• On-Call Responsibility: This role requires 24/7 availability to address unplanned incidents. The candidate must be able to receive and respond to urgent communications from Stakeholders and the ITC Control Room at any time.
• Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States for any employer.  ITC does not sponsor employment visas, such as H-1B or TN visas.