Former BP Exec Joins FirstEnergy As Vice President & Chief Information Officer

FirstEnergy Corp. announced that Steve Fortune has been named vice president and chief information officer, effective February 7.

Fortune will be responsible for leading FirstEnergy's Information Technology (IT) organization, including the Cyber and Physical Security, Innovation and Digital Enablement and Information Technology groups.

"Under his guidance, the IT organization will play a significant and critical role in FirstEnergy's mission to digitally transform the company and achieve productivity improvements through system integration and advanced technology. Fortune will report to Sam Belcher, senior vice president, Operations," FirstEnergy said

"IT vision, strategy and leadership provide the foundation for many key objectives and outcomes expected from FE Forward, our comprehensive initiative focused on improving core business efficiency and utilizing technology to help enhance the customer experience," said Steven E. Strah, FirstEnergy president and chief executive officer.

Fortune joins FirstEnergy after more than 30 years with BP, where he began his career as a chemical engineer. He progressed through several operations and engineering leadership roles before moving to the IT side of the business in 2003 as information management director.

As an IT executive, Fortune progressed through various positions of increasing responsibility, including chief information officer for BP's upstream business, before being named chief information officer for all of the company in 2016. In that role, he was responsible for setting and implementing BP's worldwide strategy for information technology and services across the company's upstream, downstream, trading and alternative energy businesses as well as overseeing BP's cyber security organization.