Extreme-Weather Service Restoration Leader

The mandate

Three severe convective storms caused extended outages, unsafe public encounters and energisation estimates that changed without a visible evidence basis. Network Control, field contractors, municipalities and customer teams used different priority lists, while damaged communications obscured crew progress. The restoration executive was dismissed after a regulatory hearing revealed that vulnerable sites and public statements could not be traced to one command record.

The leader must assume onsite authority within five days for eight months covering storm readiness, damage intelligence, prioritisation, crew deployment, mutual aid, materials, safety interfaces, municipal coordination, estimated restoration time and after-action learning. The first forty-five days will establish one restoration doctrine and exercise four municipal command interfaces before the next high-risk season. Live events take precedence over routine transformation work.

Handover requires two storm seasons completed, a tested priority hierarchy, auditable restoration estimates, functioning degraded communications, qualified mutual-aid mobilisation and ninety percent closure of causal actions. A permanent executive joins in month six and must command an unannounced multi-substation scenario plus conflicting hospital and water-facility priorities during a five-week overlap.

The interim may activate emergency command, allocate crews and scarce equipment, request mutual aid, approve emergency spend up to BRL 35 million and set customer estimate discipline. The system operator retains switching authority; safety officers may stop work; the regulator and municipalities exercise statutory powers; the board retains exceptional customer-compensation and long-term network investment decisions.

Grid reinforcement, tariff cases, vegetation-contract procurement, permanent organisation design, customer-compensation policy, asset strategy and regulatory litigation remain outside scope. The mandate restores command and public evidence under extreme weather, not the entire distribution system. No restoration target can override electrical safety, lawful access or the protected escalation route for suspected reporting manipulation.

Why this seat is open

The storms did more than damage assets: they exposed incompatible command truths across field, control room, municipal and customer interfaces. Public challenge made the prior executive's position untenable before another seasonal risk window. The board requires temporary operational authority to restore trust, exercise the system and transfer command under live conditions.

What you will own

• Establish one restoration doctrine covering damage assessment, priority, crew allocation, mutual aid, materials and public estimates.
• Decide operational priorities within delegated authority while preserving switching, safety, municipal and regulatory powers.
• Reconcile network-control status, field evidence, contractor progress and customer impact into an auditable command record.
• Govern estimated restoration times with confidence ranges, assumption changes, approval thresholds and public-correction triggers.
• Lead four municipal exercises and any live storm commands, capturing decision rationale and causal after-action evidence.
• Qualify degraded communications, mutual-aid activation, critical materials and alternative command locations before peak risk.
• Transfer two seasonal cycles and an unseen multi-substation priority conflict to the permanent restoration executive.

Candidate qualifications

• Held executive restoration command in electricity distribution through severe, geographically widespread weather events.
• Understands network control, switching boundaries, field safety, mutual aid, damage intelligence and customer estimate discipline.
• Has reconciled hospital, water, communications, vulnerable-customer and network-stability priorities under visible public scrutiny.
• Built defensible energisation estimates from incomplete field evidence without disguising uncertainty or rewarding optimism.
• Worked with regulators, municipalities, emergency services, contractors and unions while retaining a coherent utility command structure.
• Transferred live-event authority to a successor through unannounced exercises and observed seasonal operations.

Non-negotiables

• Can assume onsite São Paulo command within five days and remain available through both stated storm seasons.
• Brings electricity-distribution restoration authority; general crisis management or generation operations alone is insufficient.
• Will never subordinate switching, field safety, lawful access or protected reporting to public restoration targets.
• Accepts tariff, litigation, long-term asset, procurement, compensation-policy and statutory decisions as reserved matters.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe the hardest restoration-priority conflict you personally decided during a widespread outage.
2. 49 words maximum. What is your five-day availability and any constraint on continuous São Paulo storm command?
3. 49 words maximum. How would you make an energisation estimate auditable when field communications are degraded?