The Partnership Imperative: Why Decade-Long Programs Require Continuity
By Courtney Varner, Chairman & President, CARIAN
Scale Alone Doesn’t Define the Challenge
Over the next decade, U.S. utilities will invest more capital than in the last three combined. Transmission programs exceeding $10 billion. Nuclear projects approaching $30 billion. Grid portfolios in the tens of billions. The challenge isn’t just size, it’s time. These programs will span eight to fifteen years, outlast market cycles, and require consistent discipline across thousands of decisions. Success isn’t about flawless execution in year one. It’s about sustaining performance in year ten.
What Gets Lost When Partnerships Reset
When program management changes hands midstream, continuity disappears:
New teams spend months relearning what was already known.
Interface risks resurface as problems.
Governance rhythms and contractor trust reset to zero.
The technical work continues, but the connective tissue of the program, including relationships, knowledge, and decision cadence, is torn and slowly re-stitched. The cost rarely shows up in a line item, but it surfaces in delays, disputes, and organizational fatigue. Across the industry, programs that reset mid-phase mobilize slower and face more contractor disputes than those with sustained management continuity. The lesson is clear: transactional rotations erode value.
Why Strategic Partnership Compounds Value
Utilities that achieve predictable delivery at scale treat program management as a long-term strategic relationship, not a short-term service. Continuity compounds value in four ways:
Knowledge retention accelerates performance: Lessons from early packages are applied to later ones, turning individual wins into portfolio-wide improvements.
Relationship infrastructure stabilizes programs: Trust built over years enables collaborative problem-solving instead of adversarial disputes.
Governance structures mature: Decision rights and escalation paths evolve into efficient, proactive oversight.
Performance visibility deepens: Boards and regulators see real delivery trends over time, not just first-year baselines.
This is how utilities protect billions in capital productivity: by ensuring management continuity across the full program arc, whether through long-term partners or stable internal leadership.
The CARIAN Model
CARIAN was built for continuity. We are a pure-play Power Advisory & Execution partner focused exclusively on the power sector. That singular focus enables us to provide:
Stable leadership: The program manager who starts in Year 1 is still accountable in Year 8, carrying forward lessons and relationships.
Capacity built for the peak: We staff to handle maximum program complexity, not just average workload, ensuring critical phases never fall short.
Systems that evolve with delivery: Integrated controls and digital dashboards mature alongside the program, compounding value year after year.
We don’t rotate leaders between industries or shift focus to other priorities. Our only measure is sustained program outcomes across scope, cost, schedule, risk, and quality delivered at scale.
Looking Ahead
The next decade will test utilities not only on how much they invest, but on how well they sustain performance over time. Transactional delivery models worked when programs were smaller and shorter. At billion-dollar, decade-long scale, continuity is the differentiator. The utilities that will define this era are those that build partnerships capable of enduring, compounding, and delivering through the full lifecycle. At CARIAN, that is the standard we set: partnership as continuity, measured only in outcomes, sustained across years.
