Tennessee Valley Authority President and CEO Bill Johnson announced Wednesday that he has named Van M. Wardlaw as the new executive vice president of External Relations. Wardlaw most recently served as senior vice president for Customer Resources.
“Van has been instrumental in strengthening TVA’s relationships with our local power companies and directly served customers,” Mr. Johnson said. “He will bring this same level of leadership to his expanded role in working with elected officials, economic development professionals and other external stakeholders.”
Mr. Wardlaw will be responsible for leading the Customer Resources, Economic Development, Government Relations and External Stakeholders teams, and will serve on TVA’s Executive Management Committee, reporting to Johnson. He succeeds Executive Vice President Rob Manning, who will focus on leading TVA’s Shared Services until his retirement at the end of the year.
Mr. Wardlaw has more than 30 years of leadership experience in the planning, operating, commercial and customer sectors of the utility industry. In 2011, he was named senior vice president of Customer Resources, responsible for maintaining and enhancing relationships with the 155 local power companies served by TVA and TVA’s 58 directly served industrial customers whose revenues represent over $10 billion annually.
During his tenure with TVA, Mr. Wardlaw led the development of TVA’s most recent Integrated Resource Plan, was executive vice president of Power Supply and Fuels, and worked in the commercial sector as senior vice president for Commercial Operations and vice president of Bulk Power Trading. He also held the positions of vice president of Transmission and Reliability in Energy Delivery, where he was responsible for real-time control of TVA’s 34,000-megawatt generation fleet and 16,000 miles of transmission lines, and vice president of Transmission Operations and Maintenance. In addition, he has served in various leadership roles in customer service, economic development and marketing.
“TVA’s mission of providing low cost, reliable, cleaner energy, environmental stewardship and economic development is unique in the utility industry,” Mr. Wardlaw said. “In order to meet that mission, we must have strong partnerships with our stakeholders. I’m looking forward to working with the TVA team in continuing to strengthen our relationships with our customers, economic development professionals, government leaders and people throughout our communities as we work to make the Tennessee Valley the location of choice for families and businesses.”
Mr. Wardlaw is originally from Memphis and holds a B.S./B.A. in electrical engineering from Mississippi State University and a M.S./M.A. in business administration from the University of Mississippi. He has been designated a distinguished fellow of the Mississippi State University Bagley College of Engineering, is a registered professional engineer and is a certified power executive.