Christopher Bence Email & Phone Number

• Led and supported the development of operating, financial, and risk-based materials for several presentations to DTE's Board of Directors to support the strategic direction of the natural gas utility
• Led and managed the team that developed materials for DTE's annual planning cycle with a focus on safety, customers, operations, and financials
• Managed the team that creates customer-focused solutions to address real-time issues and to prevent reoccurrence through the implementation of sustainable countermeasures

• Led renegotiation of a long-term agreement with a coal supplier that resulted in millions of dollars of DTE Electric customer savings and significant contractual options for DTE Electric
• Drove process improvements in Request for Proposal (RFP) preparation and negotiation preparation by focusing on benchmarking, defining goals for new agreements and standardizing Best Alternative to a Negotiated.
• Successfully led team through the bankruptcy of a key supplier for the third time in my career, which resulted in minimal operational impacts

Greater Detroit Area

• Managed the O&M and capital budgets in excess of $10MM and $1MM, respectively, and successfully met the 2017 year-end targets
• Key contributor to the termination of a railcar lease, driving over $1MM in O&M savings and several millions of dollars in savings for DTE Electric customers
• Managed a team of eight and achieved a top-quartile engagement score for second time in career

1 Energy Plaza, GO, Suite 600

• Significantly enhanced the negotiation process for fuel and transportation agreements with DTE Electric suppliers by robustly quantifying the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) and other key business.
• Led negotiations with a Class I railroad that resulted in an agreement that saved DTE Electric ratepayers tens of millions of dollars per year and that included a contract value in excess of $1B
• Coached an individual contributor through negotiation preparation, BATNA analysis, and negotiation tactics, which resulted in a mutually beneficial agreement with a vessel transportation supplier worth tens of millions.
• Consistently managed multiple contract negotiations in parallel by coaching a team of three professionals through complex analyses and negotiation preparations, resulting in millions of dollars in savings for DTE.

1 Energy Plaza, GO, Suite 600

• Developed strategic plan to efficiently implement a logistics program that optimized 2015 contractual obligations, generating over $5MM in incremental ratepayer savings
• Championed human capital development and engineering progression processes, both of which drove employee engagement in the business unit and resulted in a Gallup score increase from 4.76 to 4.92 and to the top quartile.
• Led a project to standardize fuel inventory tracking and forecasting, transforming the process from highly manual to semi-automatic and reducing in-process time by 25% and process defects by 33%

414 S. Main St. Suite 300

• Coordinated and led a fuel inventory control process by co-optimizing delivery and consumption forecast that resulted in significantly reduced costs to ratepayers
• Engaged team through focused coaching in process standardization, problem solving and knowledge sharing, resulting in the highest continuous improvement rating in the company
• Created an action plan and guided individual contributors through a project to standardize and improve an emissions management process that saved ratepayers $500k annually

414 S. Main St. Suite 300

• Led two lean, six-sigma projects around special study requests and furnace pluggage optimization
• Drove implementation of new analysis technology and associated process development
• Mentored two student co-ops and coached them through the lean, six-sigma process to improve their project management skills

414 S. Main St. Suite 300

• Developed and maintained a cross-functional scorecard to drive a comprehensive array of power generation strategy efforts that led to annual ratepayer savings of $35MM

414 S. Main St. Suite 300

• Spearheaded activity-based costing projects that analyzed variable O&M costs to enhance the accuracy of dispatch prices, yielding ratepayer savings of over $100k
• Executed scenario analysis and communication plans for five projects, resulting inoptimizing operations of a pumped storage facility with ratepayer savings of $2.5MM annually

414 S. Main St. Suite 300

• Analyzed and disputed MISO settlement statements in order to secure power generator make whole payments from the market, resulting in over $40k in ratepayer savings

Master Of Business Administration (M.B.A.), Graduate With Distinction

Mechanical Engineering, Engineering