Thomas Fanning on corporate culture
From Bonus Episode: Tom Fanning on 43 Years at Southern Company (recorded at UNC Clean Tech Summit) · · Energy Empire
“The greatest harbinger of future failure is past success. And what you always have to do in my view is celebrate the revolutionaries. Look at people that will always ask why and why not. When you're in an organization that is a high-performing organization and you have such great results, people would try to kill the revolutionaries. You always have to attack your conventional wisdom, creative destruction.”
On , Thomas Fanning, Former Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer at Southern Company, spoke about corporate culture during Bonus Episode: Tom Fanning on 43 Years at Southern Company (recorded at UNC Clean Tech Summit) on Energy Empire.
About Thomas Fanning
In a bonus episode of the Energy Empire podcast recorded at the UNC Clean Tech Summit, former Southern Company Chairman, President, and CEO Tom Fanning discussed his 43-year career at the company, including his oversight of the Plant Vogtle nuclear construction project. Fanning described the project as a public-private partnership and argued that the United States has lost its ability to build large infrastructure projects. He stated that the government should act as an enabler while the private sector leads recovery efforts in critical infrastructure. Fanning criticized organized energy markets in regions such as PJM, New England, MISO, Texas, and California, calling them "kind of a disaster," and contrasted them with integrated regulated markets in the Southeast and West. He also defended union labor, saying "we need everybody in the boat." Fanning recounted an ethical dilemma from his time as CFO of Southern Company's international division, alleging that a president hired from AES had attempted to pay a bribe. He described Southern Company's guiding principles as "clean, safe, reliable, affordable" with a stable stock price, but cautioned that "the greatest harbinger of future failure is past success."