FirstEnergy Corp. has announced that Soubhagya Parija has been named vice president and chief risk officer, effective August 16. In this role, he will develop and execute a risk program; establish standards and implement robust processes and procedures to identify, mitigate, and prevent risks across the company; and support efforts by the Board of Directors and senior leadership to implement, review and approve the company’s enterprise-wide risk governance and compliance framework.
Soubhagya will report to Jon Taylor, senior vice president and chief financial officer. Soubhagya joins other new members of FirstEnergy’s leadership team who have been added in recent months, including Hyun Park, senior vice president and chief legal officer, Antonio Fernández, vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer, and Michael Montaque, vice president, internal audit.
“Soubhagya is a respected leader in the risk management field with demonstrated experience building and leading best-in-class enterprise-risk programs at utilities and other key industries,” said Steven E. Strah, president and chief executive officer. “His track record of managing risk across large organizations – while embracing an unwavering commitment to integrity and ethical behavior – makes him an excellent addition to our leadership team.”
Soubhagya has decades of risk, compliance, and governance experience and is a former board member of the Risk & Insurance Management Society (RIMS), a global risk management organization. From 2015 to earlier this year, he served as senior vice president and chief risk officer at the New York Power Authority, a state-owned utility.
Previously, Soubhagya served as director, risk strategy for Walmart, where he built and implemented an enterprise-wide regulatory compliance risk management program for the company’s international division. He also was director, enterprise risk, at Akron, Ohio-based Signet Jewelers, a specialty jewelry retailer, where he designed and built an enterprise-risk management program from the ground up.
Arya has been a part of the Content & Research Team at Hrnxt.com. She is a keen observer of economic developments, emerging businesses, people in business and keeps a tab on latest happenings in the business environment.