Chief Executive Officer - Thomas A. Fanning
Thomas A. Fanning
President, Southern Company
Thomas A. "Tom" Fanning is chairman, president and chief executive officer of Southern Company, one of America's largest producers of electricity. Elected by the board of directors in July 2010, Fanning became president of Southern Company in August 2010 and assumed the additional responsibilities of CEO and chairman in December 2010.
Fanning has worked for Southern Company for more than 30 years and has held 15 different positions in eight different business units, including numerous officer positions with a variety of Southern Company subsidiaries in the areas of finance, strategy, international business development and technology.
Most recently, Fanning served as chief operating officer, where he was responsible for Southern Company's generation and transmission, engineering and construction services, research and environmental affairs, system planning and the company's competitive generation business units. Fanning was also responsible for leading Southern Company's efforts on business strategy and served as a director of Southern Nuclear, Southern Company's nuclear plant operating company.
Fanning previously was the company's chief financial officer, where he was responsible for accounting, finance, tax, investor relations, treasury and risk management functions. In this role, he also served as the chief risk officer and had responsibility for corporate strategy as well. Prior to assuming the role of chief financial officer, Fanning was president and CEO of Gulf Power.
While at Gulf Power, Fanning was active in the state arena. He worked closely with Governor Jeb Bush to develop state government policy, served on the Governor's Transition Policy Team and in 2003 was appointed by Governor Bush to co-chair the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Advisory Committee.
Fanning serves on the Georgia Tech College of Management Advisory Board and the Georgia Tech Foundation Board of Trustees. He is also a member of the Business Roundtable.
Fanning earned bachelor's and master's degrees in industrial management from Georgia Tech. His executive education includes programs at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Harvard University School of Business and the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business.
A resident of Atlanta for more than 39 years, Fanning was born in Morristown, New Jersey.
A Better Mix for a Cleaner Future
The power plants of the Southern Company system generate electricity using a variety of fuel sources. That diversity in fuel mix has long been a hallmark of the company’s success in managing risk and maintaining a reliable supply of energy for customers.
Part of our strategy involves replacing a portion of the system’s coal-fired fleet with natural gas. At Georgia Power’s Plant McDonough-Atkinson near Atlanta, we expect to dramatically increase the plant’s capacity while reducing its emissions of sulfur dioxide by 99 percent, nitrogen oxides by 95 percent and mercury by 100 percent. The plant is also expected to achieve a 50 percent reduction in the production rate of carbon dioxide on a per-megawatt basis.
