CEO Executive AssistantRate case and regulatory proceedings coordination is one of the most complex and consequential administrative functions an energy CEO’s office manages. When a utility company files a rate case with a public utility commission, the stakes are significant: the outcome determines revenue recovery for years, shapes capital investment plans, and affects relationships with customers, regulators, and the board simultaneously. The CEO’s engagement in that process must be precisely managed, thoroughly prepared, and well-documented at every stage.
The executive assistant who supports an energy CEO through rate case proceedings is not simply scheduling meetings. They are coordinating a multi-stakeholder process that spans regulatory affairs teams, outside legal counsel, finance, communications, and the board, all while tracking docket deadlines across potentially multiple jurisdictions and managing intervenor communication protocols that carry legal implications. This article explains how skilled admin support professionals manage each dimension of that function.
Why Rate Case and Regulatory Proceedings Coordination Demands Specialized Admin Support
Rate cases are not one-time events. Large utility companies may have rate cases active in multiple states simultaneously, each with its own docket schedule, discovery timeline, and public utility commission calendar. A single rate case in a major jurisdiction can span 12 to 18 months from initial filing to final order. The CEO’s involvement is selective but high-impact: appearing at key commission hearings, providing testimony, and engaging commissioners and stakeholders at critical junctures.
Managing that selective but high-impact involvement requires an EA who understands the structure of a regulatory proceeding well enough to identify which milestones require CEO-level engagement and which can be handled by the regulatory affairs or legal teams. An EA who does not understand the difference between a pre-hearing conference, an evidentiary hearing, and a settlement conference will not be able to protect the CEO’s calendar with the right level of precision.
The consequences of poor coordination in this function are real. A CEO who arrives at a commission appearance without proper briefing materials, or who misses a stakeholder engagement window because the EA did not track the docket schedule, damages both the rate case outcome and the company’s relationship with regulators. The operational discipline the EA brings to this function is not administrative overhead. It is a direct contributor to regulatory outcomes.
Scheduling Public Utility Commission Engagement Meetings
The CEO’s engagement with public utility commissioners is one of the most relationship-sensitive scheduling challenges in the energy sector. Commissioners are quasi-judicial officials who must maintain procedural fairness during active proceedings, which means that ex parte communication rules govern what can be discussed and when. The EA must understand these constraints before scheduling any commissioner meeting.
The first step is establishing which proceedings are active and what ex parte restrictions apply in each jurisdiction. This determination comes from the regulatory affairs team or outside counsel, not from the EA independently. Once the EA has clarity on what meetings are permissible, they can build a commissioner engagement calendar that captures the appropriate windows for relationship-level conversations outside restricted periods.
Scheduling commissioner meetings typically involves working through the commission’s administrative staff or, for informal relationship meetings, directly with a commissioner’s office. The EA should maintain a contact list that includes the administrative contacts for each commissioner’s office, the commission’s general docketing office, and any staff attorneys assigned to proceedings in which the company is a party.
When scheduling commission appearances that are part of the formal proceeding record, including appearances at evidentiary hearings or settlement conferences, the EA coordinates with outside counsel on the procedural requirements and confirms that the CEO’s attendance is properly documented in the docket. Informal scheduling errors in formal proceedings can create record problems that outlast the immediate inconvenience.
Coordinating Rate Case Testimony Preparation
CEO testimony in a rate case proceeding is typically prepared collaboratively by the regulatory affairs team, outside counsel, and sometimes financial or operational experts. The CEO’s involvement in that preparation is time-intensive and must be scheduled well in advance of the hearing date.
The EA’s role in testimony preparation coordination begins with building a backward-looking preparation schedule from the testimony submission deadline. Most commissions require written testimony to be filed in advance of the evidentiary hearing, often by 30 days or more. The preparation process must work backward from that deadline to build in time for internal drafts, legal review, CEO review and revision sessions, final approval, and filing.
The EA schedules and manages the preparation sessions that require CEO participation. This typically includes: an initial briefing session with regulatory affairs and legal to orient the CEO to the proceeding’s key issues, one or more working sessions to review draft testimony and provide input, a mock cross-examination session to prepare the CEO for opposing counsel’s questions, and a final review session before the testimony is filed.
Each of these sessions requires coordinating multiple participants across different internal teams and outside counsel schedules. The EA should send calendar invitations with agenda documents attached, track RSVPs, and prepare a pre-session briefing note for the CEO that summarizes the purpose of each session and the decisions or inputs required. Testimony preparation that is well-organized at the scheduling level runs more efficiently and produces better testimony.
For rate cases in multiple jurisdictions, the EA maintains a separate testimony preparation schedule for each proceeding, coordinates to avoid scheduling conflicts when the same regulatory affairs staff or outside counsel is needed in both, and ensures the CEO has clear visibility into which proceeding each preparation session is associated with.
Tracking Docket Filing Deadlines Across Multiple Jurisdictions
Docket deadline tracking is one of the most operationally critical functions the EA manages in rate case coordination. Public utility commission proceedings operate on strict procedural schedules. Discovery deadlines, testimony submission dates, comment periods, and reply filing windows are all fixed by commission order. Missing a deadline can result in preclusion from presenting evidence or, in severe cases, procedural sanctions.
The EA maintains a docket deadline tracker that captures all active proceedings, the jurisdiction and docket number for each, all upcoming deadline dates, the internal owner responsible for meeting each deadline, and the lead time required for CEO-level actions such as testimony review and sign-off.
This tracker should be reviewed weekly with the regulatory affairs team and flagged in the CEO’s weekly briefing materials. Deadlines that require CEO action in the next 30 days should appear on the CEO’s calendar with sufficient lead time to allow for the preparation process described above. Deadlines that do not require CEO action should still appear in the tracker so the EA can monitor the internal team’s progress and flag any risks.
The tracker is most effective when it is a live document shared between the EA, regulatory affairs, and legal teams rather than a static spreadsheet maintained by the EA alone. The regulatory affairs team owns the substantive deadline management; the EA’s role is to ensure the CEO’s calendar reflects the deadlines that require executive involvement and that nothing falls through the gap between team ownership and CEO visibility.
Managing Intervenor Communication Protocols
Rate case proceedings typically attract intervenors: parties who are not the utility or the commission but who have a legal right to participate in the proceeding. Intervenors commonly include large industrial customers, consumer advocacy organizations, environmental groups, and sometimes competing utilities. Managing communication with these parties, and ensuring the CEO’s interactions with them comply with procedural rules, is an area where the EA’s coordination role has direct legal implications.
The CEO may have existing relationships with representatives of major intervenors, including large commercial customers or industry association leaders. Conversations with these contacts during an active rate case must be handled with awareness of what can and cannot be discussed outside the formal record. The EA should never schedule a CEO meeting with an intervenor representative during an active proceeding without first confirming with outside counsel that the meeting is appropriate and understanding what topics, if any, are off-limits.
For intervenor communications that are part of the formal proceeding, such as settlement discussions or joint stipulation negotiations, the EA coordinates logistics for formal meetings that include legal counsel, regulatory affairs staff, and intervenor representatives. These meetings are typically organized by outside counsel, and the EA’s role is to confirm the CEO’s attendance, prepare any briefing materials the CEO needs, and document follow-up commitments.
When rate case settlement discussions are underway, the CEO’s calendar management becomes particularly sensitive. Settlement negotiations often move quickly when they move at all, and the CEO may need to be available on short notice for calls or meetings that advance the negotiation. The EA should build buffer time into the CEO’s schedule during active settlement periods and maintain a clear escalation path for reaching the CEO outside of normal scheduling protocols.
Preparing Board Presentations on Rate Case Strategy and Financial Impact
The board has a direct interest in rate case outcomes because of their impact on the company’s revenue, capital recovery, and financial plan. The CEO must keep the board informed throughout a multi-month rate case proceeding, and the EA coordinates the preparation of those board presentations.
Board presentations on rate case strategy typically cover: the status of active proceedings by jurisdiction, the key issues in dispute and the company’s position, the procedural schedule and next significant milestones, financial impact scenarios based on the range of possible commission outcomes, and the strategic considerations shaping the company’s approach to negotiation and litigation strategy.
The EA works with the regulatory affairs team, finance, and legal to coordinate the assembly of these presentations. The process mirrors board presentation preparation for any major corporate matter: the EA sets the internal deadline for initial drafts, schedules a review session with the CEO to provide input and approve the final version, manages the final production and distribution process, and confirms that the board materials package is delivered to the corporate secretary or board services team on the required timeline.
For rate cases with significant financial impact scenarios, the finance team’s contribution to the board presentation requires particular attention. The financial modeling that underlies rate case impact scenarios is often complex, and the EA should build sufficient time into the preparation schedule for finance to complete the analysis, present it to the CEO for review, and incorporate CEO feedback before the board presentation is finalized.
Budget planning support connects directly to rate case preparation, since the financial scenarios the board reviews must align with the company’s broader capital and operating budget assumptions.
Building a Rate Case Calendar
Rate case coordination benefits from an annual and proceeding-level calendar that the EA maintains and uses to drive CEO scheduling. The rate case calendar captures: the expected filing date for any new rate cases being planned, the procedural schedule for each active proceeding, key CEO engagement milestones within each proceeding, board reporting dates tied to rate case updates, and any external events such as industry regulatory conferences where rate case strategy may be discussed.
This calendar is built in coordination with the regulatory affairs team at the start of each year and updated as commission orders modify procedural schedules. It becomes the foundation for the CEO’s annual calendar planning in the regulatory domain and helps prevent the reactive scheduling that occurs when rate case deadlines appear with insufficient lead time.
Strategic communications coordination is a related planning discipline that intersects with rate case activity, particularly when public messaging around rate case filings and outcomes requires coordination between regulatory affairs and the CEO’s communications team.
McKinsey research on regulatory strategy in regulated industries identifies proactive and well-resourced regulatory engagement as a key differentiator for utilities navigating complex commission proceedings. The administrative infrastructure the EA maintains is what makes that engagement possible.
The Standard for Rate Case and Regulatory Proceedings Coordination
Rate case and regulatory proceedings coordination requires an EA who can operate at the intersection of regulatory process, legal constraints, financial stakes, and board-level communication. The scheduling work is precise and deadline-driven. The document coordination is multi-party and time-sensitive. The communication management carries legal implications that require the EA to work closely with counsel rather than independently.
Energy CEOs who have this level of administrative support in their rate case function are better prepared for commission appearances, better protected against procedural errors, and better positioned to keep the board informed throughout a process that can last more than a year. The EA’s contribution to rate case and regulatory proceedings coordination is not clerical. It is a core operational function that affects regulatory outcomes and the CEO’s effectiveness in one of the most high-stakes arenas of utility leadership.