Lynn Good

Lynn Good is an American business executive. She Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Duke Energy, a Fortune 500 company. She also sits on the board of directors as vice-chairman. 

Fortune magazine lists Good as 19th among the "Most Powerful Women in Business" and Forbes magazine calls her one of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women." In 2016, she became the first regulated utility CEO designated as a LinkedIn Influencer – an online thought-leadership program – and recently ranked 9th on the Brunswick "Top 100 Connected Leaders" Index.

Early life and education

Good grew up in Fairfield, Ohio. Her father was a math teacher and later became a high school principal. Her mother was a teacher as well.

She attended Miami University, graduating with dual Bachelor of Science degrees in accounting and systems analysis in 1981.

Early career

Good became an auditor at the Cleveland branch of Arthur Andersen & Co. while at Andersen Good "broke the barrier to females playing major roles in auditing when she participated in the audit of Andersen's most prestigious account, Cincinnati Gas & Electric. Good rose to supervise that audit, and in 1992 she became one of Andersen's few women partners. She was also a partner for a time at Deloitte.

Cinergy

The US Justice Department indicted Arthur Andersen for its role in the collapse of Enron in 2002. As a result, almost all of Good's savings were lost. In 2003 Good joined Andersen's old audit client, now called Cinergy, for half the salary she took at Andersen. In 2006 Duke Energy purchased Cinergy, and Good went on to head the unregulated commercial business. Good was named Duke's executive vice president and chief financial officer as of July 2009. She began to make large investments in renewable energy such as wind and solar facilities that sell their power to utilities and towns.

Duke energy

In 2011, Duke of Charlotte and Progress Energy of Raleigh agreed to merge. The deal stipulated that Progress CEO William D. Johnson was to replace Duke CEO James E. Rogers, Jr. But in June 2012, on the day that the deal closed, the board fired Johnson and re-hired Rogers instead. North Carolina regulators, shocked by this turn of events, told Duke they had to choose a new CEO by the middle of 2013. Good was given the job.

Lynn Good became CEO of Duke Energy on July 1, 2013.

Other affiliations

Good was a member of the board of the Cincinnati Ballet for about eight years in the 1990s-2000s, and has been a member of the board of directors at Boeing since 2015.

She also serves as the chair of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, the not-for-profit organization that sets industry-wide nuclear safety and operational guidelines and conducts detailed evaluations for all U.S. nuclear power plants, and as a member of the board of the Edison Electric Institute and the World Association of Nuclear Operators.