W. Paul Bowers

Paul Bowers was named president and chief executive officer of Georgia Power, effective January 1, 2011. The company is the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, one of the nation’s largest producers of electricity.

He also serves as an executive vice president of Southern Company and a member of the Southern Company management council.

Bowers became chief operating officer of Georgia Power in August 2010. Before that, he was chief financial officer of Southern Company. In that role, Bowers oversaw the company’s accounting, finance, tax, investor relations, treasury and risk management functions. He also served as chief risk officer.

Bowers joined the Southern Company system in 1979 at Gulf Power. In 1990, he was elected vice president for Georgia Power, rising to senior vice president in 1995 and joining the company’s management council.

In 1998, he was elected president and CEO of South Western Electricity plc, the former United Kingdom subsidiary of Southern Company. In September 1999, he led the company through a restructuring to become one of England’s most successful distribution-only utilities.

In 2000, he directed the £1.8 billion acquisition of the Welsh Water and Electric Company, Hyder, which expanded the business to 2.4 million customers in southwest England and Wales.

From 2001 to 2008, Bowers served as president of Southern Company Generation where he oversaw a generation fleet of more than 40,000 megawatts in the southeastern United States. In addition, he was responsible for the company’s $6.6 billion annual fuel procurement budget, energy trading and fleet dispatch, system planning, engineering and construction services, and research and environmental affairs, plus the company’s competitive generation subsidiary, Southern Power Company.

Bowers serves on the boards of Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the University of Alabama School of Engineering and e3 Partners Ministry. He is vice chair of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education and a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s energy policy council as well as The Buckhead Coalition. Bowers also serves as a trustee for The Woodruff Arts Center.

A Pensacola, Florida, native, Bowers holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of West Florida and a master’s degree in management from Troy University. In 1993, Bowers completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.