Cleco Corporate Holdings
Bill Fontenot is the CEO of Cleco Corporate Holdings.
Ted Walker is a key leader in Guidehouse’s strategy, policy, and regulations team. He is a strategic advisor to energy companies, focused on growth opportunities and the changing role of the utility in the evolving energy ecosystem.
Cleco Corporate Holdings is a regional energy holding company that conducts business operations through two subsidiaries, Cleco Power and Cleco Cajun. Headquartered in Pineville, Louisiana, and in business since 1935, the company has approximately one thousand three hundred employees.
Cleco Power is a regulated electric utility that owns nine generating units and operates more on behalf of its generation partners. It also owns transmission and distribution lines.
Cleco is celebrating a record year in safety in 2023 as the leader across the board in safety performance reports for the Southeastern Electric Exchange, a trade association of investor-owned electric utility companies founded in 1933. That is quite an accomplishment.
Public Utilities Fortnightly's Steve Mitnick and Guidehouse Partner Ted Walker wanted to know more and had an engaging discussion with Cleco Corporate Holdings CEO Bill Fontenot. There is much to learn from Cleco's safety record and how it is seizing opportunities born out of the global energy transition.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: What were the most important accomplishments in 2023 at Cleco to leverage going into the new year?
Bill Fontenot: While there was much for Cleco to celebrate in 2023, our most important accomplishment was our safety performance. 2023 was Cleco's best safety performance record in the company's eighty-five-plus-year history.