Distributed-Energy Service Recovery Leader

The mandate

A portfolio serving clinics, commercial clusters and small industrial customers has experienced repeated generation and storage outages while remote alarms, field tickets and billing interruptions tell different stories. Meter bypass and informal fuel releases have increased after response times deteriorated. The chief operating executive was removed when a lender review found service credits and deferred maintenance excluded from portfolio performance. The interim assumes operating authority across uptime, field response, metering interfaces and customer recovery while formal investigations remain independently managed.

The twelve-month engagement starts within four weeks. The first thirty days protect the highest-consequence clinical and industrial loads, reconcile asset state and create controlled fuel, battery and spares release. By month four, regional maintenance, escalation and customer-remedy systems must operate from one failure taxonomy. The second half addresses recurring asset classes, contractor capability and collection-service linkages through wet and dry seasons. A permanent search launches in month six once the board approves the future portfolio operating structure.

Handover occurs after two quarters of independently sampled uptime, response, maintenance and billing evidence reconcile at site level; critical spares and competence risks have funded plans; and regional managers can run major-failure reviews without central substitution. The successor receives asset-health segmentation, site-criticality rules, contractor standing, meter exceptions, customer commitments, fuel controls, collections dependencies and scenario-tested seasonal plans. Unresolved integrity matters remain with authorised investigators and are not buried inside operational closure.

The interim may prioritise sites, redeploy technicians, suspend unsafe contractors, change callout and preventive-maintenance rules, authorise service credits within contract limits and approve emergency spares inside NGN8 billion. Asset disposal, tariff changes, customer termination, permanent senior hiring, workforce restructuring and capital above the envelope require executive or committee approval. Engineering authorities retain technical acceptance and safety decisions; the interim can stop operation where evidence or competence is inadequate but cannot certify an asset personally.

New-country entry, project development, refinancing, wholesale generation procurement and replacement of the entire metering platform are outside the assignment. The leader will not conduct fraud inquiries, negotiate regulatory settlements or treat collection pressure as permission to withdraw essential service contrary to approved policy. The focus is existing-portfolio reliability, honest operating evidence, disciplined field support and repair of customer confidence. Commercial growth resumes only where site capacity and service capability are demonstrable.

Why this seat is open

Outages exposed long-standing separation among engineering, field contractors, billing and customer teams, while portfolio reports omitted consequential cost and service debt. The former executive’s removal created an immediate authority gap during seasonal network stress. Investors need a hands-on distributed-energy leader who can stabilise essential sites and leave credible asset-and-service ownership to a permanent successor.

What you will own

• Reconcile alarms, generation, storage, fuel, meter, ticket, credit and collection evidence for every priority site.
• Decide critical-load protection, technician deployment, spares allocation and safe operating restrictions during constrained response.
• Reset maintenance and callout practices by asset health, customer consequence, competence, access and seasonal risk.
• Establish controlled fuel, battery and parts custody with exception evidence and independent investigation referral.
• Repair customer recovery through truthful incident updates, service-credit decisions and explicit restoration commitments.
• Prove regional resilience through wet-season, logistics, communications, component-failure and contractor-loss scenarios.
• Induct the successor using live site reviews, authority exercises and a portfolio risk-and-investment backlog.

Candidate qualifications

• Has recovered a distributed generation, storage, mini-grid or critical field-service portfolio in an emerging market.
• Can evidence site-level reconciliation of technical uptime, maintenance, service credit, billing and collection outcomes.
• Understands generation, batteries, fuel, metering, remote monitoring, contractor control and essential-customer consequence.
• Has acted decisively amid suspected leakage while preserving investigation independence, safety authority and due process.
• Can lead dispersed regional teams through severe logistics, security, weather and communications constraints.
• Has completed executive handover after restoring operating truth rather than sustaining performance through personal escalation.

Non-negotiables

• Can relocate to Lagos within four weeks and undertake weekly portfolio travel under agreed security protocols.
• Will not suppress outages, defer unsafe maintenance or withdraw essential service outside authorised customer policy.
• Brings direct distributed-asset operations at scale; project development or utility strategy alone is insufficient.
• Will separate operational correction from formal fraud, safety, regulatory and engineering determinations.

1. 49 words maximum. Which site-level evidence exposed the largest gap between reported and experienced distributed-energy uptime?
2. 49 words maximum. State your mobilisation date and the most operationally constrained field portfolio you have led.
3. 49 words maximum. How did you protect essential loads when spares, technicians and fuel were simultaneously constrained?