National Utilities Manager

Primary Purpose of the Job

The National Utilities Manager is accountable for strategically positioning and managing utilities across the national property portfolio, aligning the function with organisational objectives and priorities. The role leads an internal utilities control environment that governs outsourced execution, validates utility data and billing, assures revenue recovery, manages suppliers and queries, protects technical and data integrity, and drives continuous improvement in cost, recovery, tenant service, sustainability reporting and asset performance.

 
Key Performance Areas (KPA’s)

Strategy, governance and leadership

• Develop and implement the national utilities strategy, operating model, policies, standards and controls in alignment with business priorities.
• Lead the utilities function as an internal control tower, with accountability for governance, validation, revenue assurance, analytics, query management, service-provider control and continuous improvement.
• Establish formal weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual governance rhythms for queries, billing assurance, reconciliations, tariff and provider reviews, metering integrity and technology roadmaps.
• Lead, coach and develop the utilities team; clarify accountabilities, allocate work fairly, set performance standards and build analytical and technical capability.
• Partner with Property Management, Finance, Sustainability, Legal, Procurement, Asset Management and other functions to deliver an integrated utilities service.

• Manage all utilities expenses, recovery, budgeting and forecasting activities nationally.
• Oversee monthly reconciliations between municipal or Eskom costs, tenant recoveries, common-area allocations, technical losses and unrecovered amounts.
• Analyse expense and recovery reports, identify leakage and corrective action, and optimise recovery ratios while managing associated financial and operational risks.
• Ensure accurate and timely capture, validation and approval of utility accounts for payment, including the timeous payment of legitimate supplier invoices.
• Oversee tenant-managed accounts, bank guarantees, deposits, refunds, account openings and closures, and rates-clearance requirements.
• Implement risk-based billing audits and exception reviews to identify incorrect tariffs, missing or estimated reads, abnormal consumption, negative consumption and allocation errors.
  

• Own the pre-billing validation framework and ensure only complete, accurate and approved billing files proceed to tenant invoicing.
• Ensure validation covers meter-read completeness, consumption variances, tariffs, estimates, meter multipliers, common-area allocations and bulk-to-tenant reconciliation.
• Govern utility data quality, ownership, access, retention and audit trails across metering, billing, property management, ERP and reporting platforms.
• Drive dashboards and analytics for billing accuracy, recovery, spend, losses, exceptions, portfolio trends, query ageing and provider performance.
• Use consumption analysis, anomaly detection, benchmarking and trend analysis to identify risk, savings and operational improvement opportunities.

• Negotiate, implement and manage utilities and rates vendor contracts and service-level agreements.
• Monitor provider performance against agreed deliverables, accuracy, turnaround times and billing-cycle commitments; resolve non-performance and repeated control failures.
• Lead structured provider reviews, maintain escalation paths, and recommend appropriate commercial remedies, incentives or contract changes.
• Ensure providers comply with company policies, controls, data requirements, document standards and applicable regulatory obligations.

• Ensure all municipal, supplier and tenant utility queries are centrally logged, allocated, tracked and resolved within defined service levels.
• Oversee escalated customer account queries and ensure clear ownership, transparent communication, root-cause analysis and full audit trails.
• Identify recurring query themes and implement sustainable corrective actions that reduce repeat issues and improve tenant confidence.
• Promote understandable billing and appropriate consumption insights so tenants are treated as utility customers.

• Ensure a complete and accurate meter and utilities infrastructure register, supported by current diagrams, audit reports, mappings and calibration or connectivity information.
• Guide and, where necessary, oversee the installation, configuration and verification of metering and monitoring equipment.
• Implement a risk-based meter audit programme covering meter-to-tenant mapping, multipliers, faults, communication failures and unmetered consumption.
• Coordinate investigation and resolution of complex metering, electrical distribution and utility-supply issues with internal specialists and external providers.

• Ensure relevant utility datasets are collected, validated and available for operational reporting, ESG reporting, carbon accounting, energy-intensity tracking and green-building requirements.
• Support energy-transition initiatives, including solar PV, battery energy storage, wheeling or virtual wheeling, tariff optimisation and demand management.
• Drive integration and automation priorities across data ingestion, exception detection, reconciliation, dashboards, query routing and SLA tracking.
• Proactively identify and implement initiatives that improve billing accuracy, revenue recovery, operational transparency, tenant experience and portfolio performance.

• Ensure utility-management records, contracts, account documents, approvals, audit evidence and technical documentation are securely stored, controlled and accessible.
• Maintain compliance with relevant municipal, Eskom, regulatory, supply and recovery requirements for electricity, water, sewer and rates.
• Maintain a utilities risk register and ensure material control failures, losses and service risks are escalated and remediated.

Requirements

• A solid understanding of
  • Utility management (especially within the context of recovery of utilities within multi-tenanted properties).
  • Metering and verification principles.
  • Electrical distribution systems and energy fundamentals.
  • Municipal utility tariffs.
  • Regulatory principles and requirements about the supply and recovery of electricity, water and sewer services.
• Knowledge of
  • Electricity, water and rates management principles.

• Senior Certificate (with Mathematics and Accounts as a subject preferred).
• Tertiary qualification preferred.
• Additional qualifications or certifications relevant to the industry beneficial.

• •   Organising and Executing - Delivering Results and Meeting Customer Expectation 
    • Focuses on customer needs and satisfaction; Sets high standards for quality and quantity; Monitors and maintains quality and productivity; Works in a systematic, methodical and orderly way; consistently achieves project goals