Utility Asset-Reference Board Sounding Partner — Grid Modernisation

The mandate

Directors repeatedly ask whether inconsistent asset identity is now constraining safety, resilience and capital decisions enough to justify a major network-information investment. Management papers aggregate duplicate equipment, uncertain connectivity, field aliases and missing commissioning history into a data-quality score, but do not show which inspection, outage, maintenance or investment decisions become unsafe or uneconomic as a result.

The adviser will reserve two days monthly for chair preparation, executive challenge and investment-paper review, and attend five scheduled committee meetings in Auckland. A written view on a severe asset-information incident or material programme gate is expected within two New Zealand business days. Engineering investigation or programme delivery beyond board challenge requires separate commissioning.

The appointment runs ten months from February 2027. At month eight, the committee will determine whether an internal asset-information council can sustain the decision framework unaided. One four-month renewal may be recommended by the committee and approved by the full board; management cannot roll unused days forward, extend the term or redirect advisory time into backlog remediation.

This role has no line authority, executive responsibility, safety accountability, engineering approval, regulatory sign-off or procurement vote. The adviser tests evidence and frames conditions but cannot determine equipment fitness, network switching or investment execution. Accountable network and safety leaders retain decisions, and the appointment must never be presented as independent technical certification.

No more than two other substantial appointments may run concurrently. The adviser must disclose work for electricity networks, regulators, equipment makers, asset platforms, engineering firms and programme bidders. A role with a supplier under evaluation requires recusal and may be disqualifying; access to another utility’s confidential failure or cost data cannot be repurposed as anonymous benchmarking.

Why the board wants this voice

The board has deep network and financial expertise, yet nobody has rebuilt asset identity across field, spatial, control and investment systems. Technology teams describe harmonisation while engineers rely on local knowledge, leaving directors unable to price the decision risk. They want a practitioner who can challenge both a costly platform answer and complacency about imperfect operational evidence.

What you will own

• Press directors to map asset identity failures to inspection, switching, outage, maintenance, safety and capital decisions before approving broad remediation.
• Test whether hierarchy, connectivity, location, specification, lifecycle status and field aliases remain historically reproducible after network change.
• Challenge aggregate quality scores that conceal small populations of critical equipment with severe consequence or uncertain physical existence.
• Shape investment gates around observed decision improvement, reduced field verification, corrected risk exposure and accountable stewardship adoption.
• Probe proposed master platforms for migration, offline field use, integration, vendor exit and preservation of legitimate operational differences.
• Frame scenarios involving replaced equipment, temporary network configuration, emergency repair, unknown ownership and conflicting spatial or control records.
• Coach the committee to distinguish information control, engineering judgement, safety accountability and regulatory evidence in each decision paper.

Candidate qualifications

• Led asset-information or reference-data transformation for an electricity, water, transport or comparable critical infrastructure network.
• Connected equipment identity and topology defects to safety, outage, maintenance or investment outcomes rather than generic quality percentages.
• Reconciled field, GIS, asset-management, control and financial references while preserving effective history through physical network change.
• Challenged a large master-data or asset-platform investment and changed its scope using decision-risk and field-effort evidence.
• Presented information limitations to boards and regulators without implying that better data replaced accountable engineering judgement.
• Maintained conflict boundaries across utilities, equipment providers, software platforms, engineering firms and public authorities.

Non-negotiables

• Able to attend every Auckland committee session and sustain two advisory days per month for the complete term.
• Will disclose utility, regulator, equipment, platform and engineering relationships before receiving sensitive network evidence.
• Accepts that switching, safety, engineering and investment authority remains with licensed and accountable client officers.
• Must bring physical network asset experience; enterprise reference-data governance without field infrastructure depth is insufficient.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe an asset-identity defect that changed a safety, outage or capital decision in a physical network.
2. 49 words maximum. Which current utility, regulator, equipment or platform relationships would require board disclosure?
3. 49 words maximum. How would you prove that master-data investment reduces field decision risk rather than only duplicate records?