Service Desk Director - Essential Utilities

Essential Utilities, Inc. delivers safe, clean, reliable services that improve quality of life for individuals, families, and entire communities.

Operating as the Aqua (water and wastewater services) and the Peoples and Delta (natural gas) brands, Essential serves approximately 5.5 million people across 10 states. We are committed to sustainable growth, operational excellence, a superior customer experience, and premier employer status - including a competitive and comprehensive benefits package as well as a commitment to career growth opportunities.

We are advocates for the communities we serve and are dedicated stewards of natural lands, protecting more than 7,600 acres of forests and other habitats throughout our footprint.

Our company is one of the most significant publicly traded water, wastewater service and natural gas providers in the U.S.

Essential Utilities now requires a Service Desk Director who will drive the vision and strategic direction of IT Support aligning with our business goals while ensuring the highest levels of service quality and customer satisfaction. You will oversee the daily operations of the help desk and desktop services ensuring efficient and effective support to all 3000+ users across the Essential eight state footprint. You will have the opportunity to drive change, champion continuous improvement initiatives while leveraging cutting-edge tools and fostering a culture of service excellence.

Key Responsibilities:

• Leadership & Management: Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of distributed service desk professional fostering a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, and customer service.
• Service Quality: Ensure the cost-effective delivery of exceptional service quality, meeting, and exceeding customer expectations for issue resolution. Implement best practices and industry standards to drive service excellence. You will also develop desktop hardware and OS system strategies that keep the company’s desktop platforms current with industry technology, manage our application compatibility while defining refresh strategies and purchasing inventory.
• Continuous Improvement: Leverage ITIL practices and other frameworks to identify opportunities for improvement. Develop and implement strategies to enhance service delivery, streamline processes, and optimize resource utilization.
• Metrics & Reporting: Improve and maintain key performance indicators (KPIs). Analyze data to track and improve performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Act as the primary liaison between IT and business units. Build strong relationships with stakeholders to understand their needs and ensure alignment with IT services.
• Vendor management: Oversee relationships with external IT vendors ensuring cost management, optimal service delivery and technical expertise.  
• Change Management: Serve as a change agent to implement initiatives that will enhance service delivery and operational efficiency. Lead and foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement within the team.

Experience and Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, IT, or related field or 10+ years of experience leading and managing a distributed IT Support team across multiple business segments.
• Must have extensive experience with scaling organizations and developing process and systems in support.
• Proven experience in a leadership role within a distributed service desk or IT support environment with demonstrable knowledge of IT hardware, software, infrastructure, and root cause analysis methodologies.
• Strong understanding of ITIL practices and other service management frameworks delivering process improvements. 
• Demonstrated ability to lead and motivate a team, fostering a collaborative and high-performance customer-centric culture.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage and influence stakeholders at all levels.
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to interpret data and make informed decisions.
• Experience with continuous improvement methodologies and tools.
• Experience gained in the Utilities experience is preferable.

Essential Utilities, Inc., is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Equal employment opportunity is provided to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to the following legally protected characteristics: race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions, including medical conditions related to lactation), physical or mental disability, covered-veteran status, genetic information (including testing and characteristics), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or any other characteristic protected by applicable local, state or federal law.
Essential Utilities is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities.  If you have a condition that may prevent you from applying for a job online or need to request an accommodation during the interview process, please call (1-877-271-9012).  
To maintain the integrity of the recruitment process and to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest due to employment and/or assignment of family members and personal referrals, specific guidelines apply to the hiring and assignment of these individuals including, but not limited to:

• Family members cannot result in a supervisor/subordinate reporting relationship
• Family members cannot work in the same department.