Director, Engineering, Utilities & Electrical

AbbVie · North Chicago, IL, United States

  • Senior
  • Full-time
  • Posted 2026-09-16
  • Confirmed live on 25 September 2026

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Job description

Job Description
Position Summary
The Director, Utilities & Electrical owns strategic discipline leadership, people leadership, technical governance and project enablement for electrical power systems, clean utilities, black utilities, energy infrastructure, reliability, maintainability, electrical safety and operational readiness within AbbVie Global Engineering.
The role provides senior technical and organizational leadership for AbbVie’s global manufacturing network and strategic capital investments through standards ownership, front-end engineering support, technical decision-making, project risk management and disciplined execution across priority investment programs, manufacturing sites and technology platforms.
The Director leads and develops a global team of electrical and utilities technical experts, establishes clear priorities and accountabilities, and ensures the organization has the capability and capacity required to support brownfield expansions, modernization programs, debottlenecking, infrastructure upgrades, lifecycle asset replacement and greenfield manufacturing investments.
The role serves as the senior Global Engineering authority for electrical and utilities strategy, ensuring systems are safe, compliant, resilient, energy efficient, maintainable and capable of supporting current and future manufacturing requirements.
The Director partners with Strategic Investments, project delivery teams, operations, quality, EHS, validation/CQV, site engineering, sustainability, digital/automation and external engineering partners to deliver technically robust, scalable and business-aligned engineering solutions.
Global Engineering Governance and Standards

• Establish, own and deploy global engineering standards, design criteria, specifications, technical practices and governance expectations for electrical power systems, clean utilities, black utilities, energy infrastructure, reliability, maintainability and electrical safety.

• Act as the senior discipline authority for material electrical and utilities decisions affecting safety, quality, compliance, cost, schedule, operability, resilience or lifecycle value.

• Define discipline strategy and multiyear capability roadmaps aligned with AbbVie’s manufacturing network strategy, sustainability objectives and strategic investment priorities.

• Govern consistent application of standards, design principles, lessons learned and engineering playbooks across regions, sites and capital projects.

• Establish assurance and review processes that verify technical quality at key project stage gates.

• Lead resolution and escalation of significant discipline risks, deviations from standards and cross-project technical issues.

• Represent Global Engineering in enterprise technical governance forums and communicate clear, executive-ready recommendations to senior stakeholders.
Strategic Capital Investment Leadership

• Provide senior owner-side engineering leadership for the electrical and utilities scope of strategic capital investments, including new facilities, major capacity programs, technology platform deployments, infrastructure solutions and lifecycle asset strategies.

• Lead discipline input to front-end engineering, facility concepts, site master planning, investment option evaluation, business cases and technology selection.

• Define electrical and utilities design strategies for strategic projects, including power architecture, utility generation and distribution, redundancy philosophy, capacity planning, energy performance, maintainability, monitoring and operational readiness.

• Ensure discipline assumptions, deliverables, risks, interfaces, resources and decisions are incorporated into program plans, cost estimates and execution strategies.

• Establish project assurance priorities and direct senior technical reviews at concept, basic design, detailed design, construction, commissioning and handover stages.

• Balance safety, quality, compliance, reliability, sustainability, cost and schedule when making or recommending investment decisions.

• Apply global lessons learned and network standards to improve project quality, speed, predictability and readiness across the portfolio.

• Provide clear escalation to the VP, Global Engineering and Strategic Investments leadership when decisions have material enterprise, program or network impact.
Electrical and Utilities Technical Leadership

• Lead technical decision-making for medium- and low-voltage power distribution, substations, transformers, switchgear, motor control, emergency and standby power, uninterruptible power supplies, grounding, lightning protection and electrical protection systems.

• Provide governance for electrical safety, arc-flash risk, hazardous-area classification interfaces, protection coordination, power quality, system studies and safe equipment lifecycle management.

• Direct strategies for clean utilities, including purified water, water for injection, clean steam, pr

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