By Ali Halloum
AFRO Intern
Tamla Olivier, the new CEO of Baltimore Gas and Electric since May 1, previously worked in several companies across the region, from T. Rowe Price, to Pepco Holdings to Exelon Corp. Now serving as the head of a company providing power to 1.2 million customers, Olivier spoke with the AFRO about her experience as a Black woman in a position of corporate leadership and her vision for the future of BGE.
AFRO: How is coming to BGE a homecoming for you?
Tamla Olivier: Most of my career has been here in Baltimore. Just coming home, one of the things that I always talk about, Baltimore is definitely a special city and holds a special place in my heart. I’ve gone to other cities and met great people in these other cities, but Baltimore feels like home. There’s real community. There’s a village of folks who want to see phenomenal things coming from Baltimore, and also, just more broadly in the state of Maryland, they’re committed to it. They’re passionate about it. And if you’re serious about progress and change, they’re willing to work with you on it. So it feels like home.
AFRO: What has your experience been like as a Black woman in a major position of leadership?
TO: I could talk to you about this all day long. I’m the first at BGE, but we’re a 209-year-old company. It would be great if I wasn’t the first, and so, you know, we still have work to do, I would say more broadly. But what it means is for me, one, I have to show up every single day. And most days, I have to prove that I deserve to be in this role. At the end of the day, I have to focus on making sure I’m delivering for my employees and delivering for my customers. So you know, as I move about my day. I’m not thinking, ‘Oh, you’re a Black lady.’ I’m thinking, ‘You’ve got to show up. You’ve got to deliver at a very high level.’ And that’s what my focus is. I need to have a meaningful impact on the communities that I serve and with my employees that I serve as well. So it has not been an easy road, I think. As I’ve moved across my career, there have been several times where I have been dismissed, I have been underestimated, I maybe didn’t get the same level of support as some of my peers who didn’t look like me. what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And so those were just opportunities for me to dig in harder, go harder. And then I would say…we’re in a very interesting time in the country. And so there are also questions around, did she get the role because of her merit or did she get the role because of diversity, equity, inclusion? And I want to make it very clear that I have busted my butt to get in the seat that I sit in today, and I have been given nothing. I have earned everything, and it is 100 percent based on merit.
AFRO: What is at the forefront of your agenda as the CEO of Baltimore Gas and Electric?
TO: We recognize that our customers are struggling to keep up with increases, whether you’re talking about energy, housing, health care, child care, groceries, the list goes on and on. Right now, we have received 35,000 applications for people looking for assistance with their electric bill, and we’ve already had the opportunity to approve over $500,000 in assistance, with the average assistance being about $400, which is pretty significant. We will continue to accept applications, and we are really excited to be able to offer this to our customers, specifically our most vulnerable customers, and being able to support them in this way. We have also been out and about in the community. We’ve already done over 100 community events in neighborhoods, face-to-face, talking to customers about understanding their bill, things that they could be doing, from an energy efficiency perspective, to better manage their bills as well.
AFRO: What are the biggest challenges currently facing Baltimore Gas and Electric?
TO: The biggest challenge for us is really wanting to get to a place where the electricity for our customers is affordable. So we are very committed to both providing affordable electricity to our existing customers while supporting economic development jobs opportunities for the state of Maryland, and more specifically, Baltimore. And what that means is we want to be able to partner with the state on solving this energy gap. , we need to be in a position to generate more electricity within the state so we are not solely dependent and reliant on other states to bring energy in.
AFRO: With the increasing adoption and proliferation of artificial intelligence, how is that going to play a role in the future of BGE?
TO: We are constantly looking at ways to run our business in a more efficient and effective way, in addition to reducing cost internally, which translates directly to our customer bills. We are leveraging AI internally. Just to give you a couple of examples: There’s a lot of tree trimming that happens across our territory, and we are able to partner with many of our vendors to leverage AI to do trending analysis to better understand when we should be trimming, when we would expect to trim so that we can be more effective at how we’re managing those dollars. So it might be that we’re saying, ‘Oh, you need to trim every four years.’ But the data might suggest, because of the amount of rain and precipitation, because of the type of plan it is, you don’t need to trim every four years. Maybe you only need to trim every six years.
Great Job Ali Halloum & the Team @ AFRO American Newspapers Source link for sharing this story.
