As consumers, we generally don’t think about our utilities unless something goes wrong, we have a question about our bill, or we encounter an outage. Yet, we all need power, water, and waste management.
Climate impacts in our global society are resulting in increasingly fragile communities, and one tragic event can turn them upside down in a moment. Further, the United States is faced with a pending crisis as it relates to aging infrastructure, a maturing workforce with waning succession, exponentially increasing demand for power, and supply that is struggling to keep up.
Through my work in consulting services at KPMG, I lead large-scale transformation programs that address challenges in the power and utilities sector, often ranging from $100 million to multi-billion-dollar initiatives. This work spans modernizing customer-facing processes and systems, back-office optimization, field operations, and complex regulatory transformation.
Utility transformations are as much about navigating policy as they are about deploying technology. Large utilities are regulated entities, operating within strict oversight from public utility commissions, nonprofit and government environmental agencies, and legislative mandates.
Regulatory bodies often move more slowly than market conditions demand.
Policy commonly lags innovation in the utilities industry. That’s one of the core tensions. Utility companies are eager to invest in grid modernization, storage, and renewable integration, but they have to justify every dollar to regulators with a clear cost-benefit story. And consumers generally see a portion of the cost in their electric bills. At the same time, regulators are under pressure to keep rates low, ensure reliability, and meet ambitious clean energy goals.
The industry faces ongoing challenges in meeting modern demands. Bottlenecks in permitting often delay critical transmission projects. In many service territories in America, the transmission lines you see over the highways are more than 50 years old. Rate structures and state-level regulations add additional complexities, yielding different realities for customers living in different areas of the country. Federally, the stop-and-go approach to tax credits and renewables investment hinders progress toward a diversified and resilient energy future.
The U.S. continues to be a leader of energy in the world, but the future of power and utilities depends on our ability to effectively transform.
I partner with utility executives and technology providers to lead transformations that reimagine how utilities serve their customers and communities. These programs often involve large-scale operating model redesigns, digital enablement, workforce re-skilling, and system integrations across multiple business lines. These aren’t just IT projects. They’re cultural and institutional transformations. When millions are being spent on a program, success depends not just on engineering excellence, but on aligning diverse stakeholders around a common vision.
I credit Wabash with teaching me not just how to think, but how to lead. At Wabash, I learned to stand, to speak my mind, and to take responsibility. Those are the traits that matter when leading in ambiguity, under pressure, and with competing priorities.
As the energy industry undergoes a profound transformation, Wabash continues to be a place where future leaders are forged. We need thinkers and builders, but we also need questioners, communicators, and bridge-builders. Wabash prepares students to meet complexity head-on. That’s exactly what the global energy transformation demands.