PG&E Announces New Risk and Safety Leadership Structure
July 06 2020 - 5:00PM
Business Wire
Sumeet Singh to return to PG&E as Senior
Vice President and Chief Risk Officer, reporting directly to the
Interim CEO of PG&E Corporation and overseeing all risk
management associated with operations and public safety
Stephen Cairns becomes Chief Audit Officer
overseeing all risk management related to finance, energy
procurement, insurance, audit and fraud detection; will oversee new
program to strengthen PG&E’s quality assurance
Francisco Benavides, Chief Safety Officer,
promoted to Senior Vice President
PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company
(together “PG&E”) today announced changes to the risk and
safety leadership structure to further strengthen the utility’s
enterprise-wide risk mitigation and operational safety
capabilities. PG&E currently has a Vice President of Internal
Audit and Chief Risk Officer whose duties include enterprise risk,
internal audit, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, market and credit risk
management, third party risk management, loss control and
insurance. Going forward, those responsibilities will be split
between two senior leaders, a Chief Risk Officer and a Chief Audit
Officer. Additionally, PG&E is elevating the current position
of Chief Safety Officer to a Senior Vice President role.
“Our new leadership structure is consistent with the commitments
we made to the Governor’s Office and the California Public
Utilities Commission to help improve our safety culture and our
operational outcomes,” said PG&E Corporation’s Interim Chief
Executive Officer Bill Smith. “We are bolstering our leadership
team so we can further integrate industry-leading risk management
approaches across all of our business.”
Sumeet Singh, who previously led PG&E’s wildfire safety
efforts through 2019, is returning to PG&E and has been
appointed Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer (CRO),
effective August 1, 2020. In this CRO capacity, he will report
directly to PG&E Corporation’s Interim Chief Executive Officer
Bill Smith. As Chief Risk Officer, Singh will have oversight over
all risk management related to PG&E’s operations and public
safety. This includes risks associated with wildfires, nuclear,
dams, natural gas and natural disasters, as well as other strategic
risks confronting utilities, including those relating to
cyber-attacks, pandemic and other catastrophic events. Singh will
also be responsible for evaluating risks associated with the Public
Safety Power Shutoff program (PSPS).
As noted, Singh was previously Vice President of the utility’s
Community Wildfire Safety Program. He also held numerous leadership
roles in the utility’s Gas Operations after the San Bruno
transmission pipeline explosion in 2010 as the company worked to
overhaul and improve its gas system. Singh began his career at the
utility as an engineer in 2000 and held various roles in gas
distribution and transmission organizations including finance and
renewable energy resource development functions.
Stephen Cairns, who currently serves as PG&E’s Vice
President of Internal Audit and Chief Risk Officer, will transition
to the new role of Chief Audit Officer, effective August 1, 2020.
In this capacity, he will report to Jason Wells, PG&E
Corporation’s Chief Financial Officer. As Chief Audit Officer,
Cairns will oversee PG&E’s internal audit function, including
its expanded role in supplier auditing and proactive fraud
detection efforts through advanced analytics. Cairns will also
oversee a new program to improve PG&E’s quality assurance
functions in addition to his oversight of Sarbanes-Oxley
compliance, third-party risk management, market and credit risk
management, and loss control and insurance. Cairns joined PG&E
in 2006 as Senior Director, Internal Auditing, and subsequently
took on the leadership of Compliance and Ethics. Between June 2008
and March 2010, Cairns served as Controller.
Francisco Benavides, who currently serves as PG&E’s Vice
President and Chief Safety Officer, will be elevated to Senior Vice
President level, effective immediately. Benavides was appointed to
the role in February 2020 and will continue reporting to PG&E
Corporation’s Interim Chief Executive Officer Bill Smith.
“PG&E is squarely focused on maintaining safe operations and
improving our operational performance,” continued Smith. “Sumeet,
Stephen, and Francisco are talented leaders with the knowledge,
experience, and commitment to help our teams drive our safety
performance and culture forward. I look forward to working closely
with them in their new roles as all of us at PG&E work to keep
our customers and communities safe.”
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release includes forward-looking statements that are
not historical facts, including statements about the beliefs,
expectations, estimates, future plans and strategies of PG&E
Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company, including but not
limited to, statements about PG&E’s focus on maintaining safe
operations and improving operational performance. These statements
are based on current expectations and assumptions, which management
believes are reasonable, and on information currently available to
management, but are necessarily subject to various risks and
uncertainties. In addition to the risk that these assumptions prove
to be inaccurate, factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking
statements include factors disclosed in PG&E Corporation and
Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s joint annual report on Form 10-K
for the year ended December 31, 2019, their joint quarterly report
on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2020, and their
subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (the “SEC”), which are available on PG&E
Corporation’s website at www.pgecorp.com and on the SEC website at
www.sec.gov. PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric
Company undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether due to new information, future
events or otherwise, except to the extent required by law.
About PG&E Corporation
PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG) is a holding company
headquartered in San Francisco. It is the parent company of Pacific
Gas and Electric Company (the “Utility”), an energy company that
serves 16 million Californians across a 70,000-square-mile service
area in Northern and Central California. Each of PG&E
Corporation and the Utility is a separate entity, and is subject to
separate laws, rules and regulations. For more information, visit
pgecorp.com.
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