VP, Business Systems & Application Support (CIO)

Job description

Position Purpose: The Vice President serves as a visionary leader, providing strategic leadership across business functions, running the current application with zero business disruption, defining and delivering digital transformation roadmaps and driving innovation to build future state capabilities. As a key member of the leadership team, the CIO is responsible for the strategic direction, implementation, and management of all information and operational technology initiatives. The successful candidate will collaborate with business leaders to adopt the digital transformation to enhance operational efficiency, ensure data security, and deliver measurable business value at scale and speed. This role requires a balance of high-level strategic planning and hands-on oversight of complex infrastructure in a highly regulated utility environment. Summary The Business Division CIO for Regulated Utilities at Veolia North America is a hybrid leadership role: part utility-domain IT leader, part digital transformation owner, and part business partner to the regulated leadership team. The role sits within Veolia’s broader DB&T (Digital, Business & Technology) function but is dedicated to the Regulated business line, aligning technology strategy, investments, and operations to that division’s P&L, customers, and regulatory obligations. The CIO’s primary mandate is to ensure that the Regulated Utility division’s technology portfolio directly supports: • Safe, compliant, and reliable water operations (treatment, distribution, wastewater). • Customer experience and billing for customers. • Financial and HR applications. • Cost efficiency and margin improvement through automation and standardization. • Risk management, cybersecurity, and regulatory reporting for water utilities. Primary Duties/Responsibilities: 1. IT strategy and business alignment • Own the division-specific IT/digital strategy and roadmap, aligned with Veolia North America’s global DB&T strategy and the Regulated business plan. • Translate business priorities (e.g., regulatory mandates, capex delivery) into technology initiatives and investment cases. • Define the target operating model for IT within the division (roles, governance, decision rights, ways of working with central IT and shared services). 2. Application portfolio and enterprise systems • Oversee enterprise applications critical to regulated operations, customer and finance, typically including ERP, field service/maintenance systems, billing/CRM, and asset management. • Drive standardization and de‑customization of systems across utilities to reduce cost and complexity while meeting local regulatory requirements. • Ensure application performance, availability, and lifecycle management (upgrades, patches, sunset decisions) for systems used by plant operators, field crews, customer service, and finance. 3. Digital and customer experience for customers • Lead digital CX strategy for regulated customers, including self‑service portals, mobile apps, outage/quality notifications, and digital engagement tools. • Map customer journeys (residential, commercial, and other stakeholders) and prioritize digital enhancements that improve satisfaction, reduce call volume, and support performance metrics. 4. Convergence with operational technology • Work closely with Operations, Engineering, and Safety to integrate IT and OT (SCADA, PLCs, telemetry, sensors) in a secure, governed manner. • Prioritize use cases such as predictive maintenance, leak detection, energy optimization at treatment plants, and real‑time water quality monitoring enabled by data platforms and analytics. • Ensure change management, vendor management, and cybersecurity controls for environments align with corporate policies and water-sector regulations. 5. Cybersecurity, risk, and compliance • Own the division’s IT risk profile and ensure implementation of cybersecurity standards, incident response, and resilience plans specific to water utilities. • Ensure compliance with relevant regulations and standards (e.g., state/federal water regulations, cybersecurity frameworks, data privacy requirements) as they intersect with IT and data systems. • Coordinate with corporate security, legal, and risk functions on audits, assessments, and remediation plans for water and wastewater systems. 6. Data, analytics, and AI for water operations • Oversee the division’s data strategy, including data governance, master data, and integration across operational, customer, and financial systems. • Enable advanced analytics and AI use cases: demand forecasting, non‑revenue water reduction, energy optimization, asset health scoring, and customer segmentation. • Partner with central data/AI teams to industrialize models and embed them into daily operations and decision-making. 7. Budget, vendors, and portfolio management • Manage the division’s IT budget, including run/grow/transform spend, business cases, and ROI tracking for technology initiatives. • Lead vendor strategy and contract management for key suppliers (enterprise software, telecom, cloud, system integrators). • Govern the project and program portfolio: prioritize initiatives, allocate resources, track delivery, benefits realization, and escalation of risks/issues. 8. Leadership, governance, and change management • Lead a cross‑functional IT/digital team supporting the division (application managers, solution architects, project managers, business analysts, possibly embedded IT in regions). • Participate in Veolia North America’s executive and DB&T governance forums, representing Regulated Utility needs and ensuring alignment with group strategy. • Drive enterprise change management: training, communications, adoption plans for new systems and digital ways of working across operations, customer service, and finance. • Oversee enterprise architecture, application development/implementation, and technical operations ensuring alignment with corporate standards and security policie