Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndianapolis Power & Light Co. has named a new president and CEO, filling a position that has been open for about a year.
Rafael SanchezRafael Sanchez, who joined IPL five months ago as senior vice president of strategic planning, has been promoted to the job, the utility announced Wednesday.
He succeeds Kelly Huntington, who resigned last summer to become senior vice president of enterprise strategy at OneAmerica Financial Partners.
IPL, which serves about 480,000 customers in Indianapolis, is a subsidiary of AES Corp. of Arlington, Va.
“Rafael is a trusted leader who is uniquely qualified to ensure IPL delivers safe, reliable and sustainable energy to our customers,” Ken Zagzebski, president of AES United States, said in a written statement.
Before joining IPL in February, Sanchez was vice president of business development and legal affairs at Fineline Printing Group. He previously was a partner at Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP law firm. He has served on the IPL Advisory Board for the past five years.
The move is the latest sign that IPL is getting back on its feet after several rocky years. In March, the company won state approval to collect an additional $29.6 million in annual revenues, a move that will increase monthly rates.
That marked the company’s first increase in base rates since 1994, although state regulators have given the company permission to raise rates several times to cover certain expenses.
And state regulators also recently gave a clean bill of health to IPL’s underground network, which had been the subject of controversy due to more than a dozen underground explosions, some of which blew manhole covers high into the air.
“This is a transformative time for our industry, and I am up for the challenge of maintaining the value, service and reliability our customers depend upon,” Sanchez said in a written statement.
Sanchez holds a bachelor’s degree in social sciences and political science from the University of Puerto Rico and a law degree from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.