Regulated-Asset-Base Recovery Leader — Electricity Networks

The mandate

Completed projects enter the fixed-asset register through finance work orders, while regulatory asset additions rely on engineering commissioning, prudent-cost classifications and customer-contribution treatment. Retirements, replacements and abandoned design work follow separate processes. A regulator’s sample found assets with accounting value but weak commissioning evidence and network records with no controlled financial lineage, threatening the next revenue-reset submission.

The fourteen-month assignment starts within three weeks and covers opening-base reconciliation, capital expenditure, commissioned service, capitalised labour and overhead, customer and government contribution, disposal, replacement, shared asset, tax and regulatory depreciation. The leader must produce one evidence chain without assuming that statutory fixed assets, tax bases and regulated value should be identical.

Permanent recruitment begins in month seven. Handover requires a reconciled opening-to-closing regulated base, twenty remediated project files, approved classification rules, six asset-location walkthroughs, two controlled closes and a submitted reset evidence room. The successor must resolve an unseen replacement project involving partial retirement and customer contribution, then defend all three accounting, tax and regulatory bridges.

The role may reject unsupported additions, require commissioning attestations, set project-file standards, approve delegated corrections, redirect the authorised AUD 110 million remediation budget and replace temporary asset-finance leads. The board retains submission approval, regulatory interpretation, capital programme, pricing proposal, accounting and tax policy, asset retirement decisions, settlement strategy and permanent appointments.

Engineering acceptance, network safety, land rights, procurement, project delivery, tax advice and regulatory negotiation remain outside scope. The leader may require those functions’ evidence but cannot commission an asset operationally or advocate a regulatory position as fact. Recovery cannot be achieved by capitalising ineligible cost, suppressing disposals or forcing statutory and regulatory bases to match.

Why this seat is open

Project teams measure physical delivery, Asset Accounting closes ledgers and Regulation builds the revenue base, while the previous leader reconciled differences late and manually. The regulator’s sample exposed both control weakness and the incumbent’s departure. Temporary authority is required through reset preparation, submission and tested permanent succession.

What you will own

• Reconcile project approval, work order, incurred cost, commissioning, asset record, regulatory addition, tax basis and depreciation.
• Define evidence for useful service, prudent expenditure, capitalised labour, overhead, shared assets, contributions and abandoned work.
• Govern replacements, component retirement, disposals, stranded assets, asset transfers and register-to-network-system differences.
• Establish project-file ownership, cut-off, correction, attestation, sampling, issue ageing and regulator-response controls.
• Lead scenarios involving partial commissioning, delayed easement, customer contribution, failed project and emergency replacement.
• Maintain separate statutory, tax and regulatory bridges with visible interpretation, judgement and unresolved evidence.
• Transfer two closes, twenty project files, six walkthroughs and the unseen replacement case to the permanent leader.

Candidate qualifications

• Held senior regulated-asset or network-finance authority through an electricity revenue-reset or comparable price-control submission.
• Reconciled engineering commissioning, project cost, fixed assets, tax bases and regulatory value at asset and programme level.
• Governed capitalised labour, overhead, contributions, replacements, retirements and abandoned projects under regulatory scrutiny.
• Challenged unsupported additions without delaying safety-critical network work or usurping engineering acceptance.
• Built evidence rooms and movement bridges used directly by regulators, boards, auditors and permanent asset teams.
• Completed succession during an active submission and tested the new leader on a mixed addition-and-retirement event.

Non-negotiables

• Can work onsite in Melbourne and complete all six regional asset residencies during fourteen months.
• Will disclose relationships with regulators, network operators, engineering firms, auditors, tax advisers and capital suppliers.
• Brings asset-level regulatory-base recovery through a live reset; utility FP&A alone is insufficient.
• Will not commission assets, set prices, negotiate the reset, choose policy or conceal ineligible cost and disposals.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a regulated asset addition you removed after commissioning evidence was tested.
2. 49 words maximum. How would you separate accounting, tax and regulatory treatment for one replacement project?
3. 49 words maximum. What unseen contribution-and-retirement case must the successor resolve before handover?