PG&E announces new risk and safety leadership structure

PG&E — the union of PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company — announced changes to its risk and safety leadership this week to improve safety culture at the California company.

Currently, PG&E has both a Vice President of Internal Audit and Chief Risk Officer. These positions oversee enterprise risk, internal audits, compliance to Sarbanes-Oxley, market and credit risk management, third party risk management, loss control, and insurance. Going forward, these duties will be instead split between the Chief Risk Officer and a Chief Audit Officer. The current position of Chief Safety Officer will also be upgraded to a Senior Vice President role at the company.

“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,” Bill Smith, PG&E Corporation’s Interim CEO, said. “We are bolstering our leadership team so we can further integrate industry-leading risk management approaches across all of our business.”

Filling the positions will be Sumeet Singh, a return hire who will fill the roles of Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer; Stephen Cairns, as Chief Audit Officer; and Francisco Benavides as Chief Safety Officer.

Singh, who previously led PG&E’s wildfire safety efforts through 2019, will report directly to the interim CEO of PG&E Corporation and, as Chief Risk Officer, will oversee all risk management regarding operations and public safety. As Chief Audit Officer, Cairns will oversee all risk management related to finance, energy procurement, insurance, audit, and fraud detection, as well as oversee new programming to bolster the company’s quality assurance.

The promotion of Benavides to Senior Vice President follows work that has been ongoing for him since February. Under the immediately effective promotion, he will continue reporting to interim CEO Smith.