Alabama Power President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Crosswhite intends to retire on Dec. 31, 2022.
Crosswhite led Alabama Power for more than eight years and built a reputation as a low-key but powerful industry thought leader and corporate citizen, according to a release.
“As the leader of Alabama Power Company, one of Alabama’s great corporate institutions, Mark carried with him each and every day [a] sense of service as he worked to improve the lives of customers, communities and colleagues,” said Tom Fanning, chairman, president and CEO of Southern Company, Alabama Power’s parent company. “The entire Southern Company system has benefited greatly from Mark’s expertise, wisdom and citizenship in helping build the future of energy for the betterment of millions of lives across the country.”
Crosswhite became president and CEO of Alabama Power in March 2014, coming from Southern Company, where he served as chief operating officer. From 2010 to 2012, he served as president and CEO of Florida-based Gulf Power, a Southern Company subsidiary at the time. From 2008 to 2010, Crosswhite served as executive vice president for external affairs at Alabama Power. He began his Alabama Power career in 2006 as senior vice president and counsel, overseeing the company’s legal matters. Crosswhite joined Southern Company in 2004 as senior vice president and general counsel for Southern Company Generation. Before that, Crosswhite represented the company in private practice for 17 years.
Crosswhite pivoted Alabama Power toward innovation and meeting customers’ long-term energy needs while championing a strong relationship with the company’s building trades partners, the company said. He also advanced the company’s role in elevating the state and its communities with a continued emphasis on economic development and through the work of the Alabama Power Foundation and company employee and retiree volunteers.
“Having the privilege of leading Alabama Power has been the high point of my career,” Crosswhite said. “It has been an honor working for a company that for more than a century has been dedicated to serving communities across Alabama.”
His successor will be named at a later date.
While at Alabama Power, Crosswhite worked with Alabama Power employees in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and in the building trades on continuing a strong labor-management partnership. North America’s Building Trades Unions named Crosswhite its apprenticeship readiness national spokesperson in 2019 and 2020. Crosswhite also oversaw the forming of Alabama Power’s Council on Culture and Inclusion, which works to ensure the company’s culture is built on inclusion, respect and fairness for all employees.
Crosswhite has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a Juris Doctor from the University of Alabama School of Law.
Alabama Power is based in Birmingham, Ala., and provides electricity service to 1.5 million customers. The company owns or operates 77 electric generating units with total nameplate capacity of more than 12,000 MW. Hydropower provides about 6% of its power generation, from 14 facilities.