Ronald Bertasi was named Southern Company vice president of product management and president and CEO of Southern Company Energy Solutions today in a move to further strengthen the company’s marketing focus across its Super Southeast service territory. He joins Southern Company from Enron Energy Services.

In this role, Bertasi will manage the planning and operations for both stand alone and large customized products and services for business customers, including full profit and loss responsibility. He will work with Southern Company’s operating companies on lead generation and direct small business acquisition efforts. In addition, he will be responsible for business line extension and growth of existing businesses.

“Ron’s proven record of success in establishing new energy businesses and rapidly improving existing energy business will benefit Southern Company,” said Leonard Haynes, Southern Company executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

Previously, Bertasi served as vice president, mass market for Enron Energy Services in Houston, an operating unit of the Enron Corporation. There, he established Enron’s business supplying energy to small business customers in deregulated markets, with full profit and loss responsibility. He also served as vice president of the Europe division from 1999-2001, where he was a founding officer and established the company’s European energy outsourcing business. Bertasi also served as Enron Energy Services vice president of business development and director of consumer services.

Bertasi was employed by Booz Allen & Hamilton, an international management consulting firm, from 1993-1997, where he served clients in the energy and chemicals industries. Bertasi was a project geologist from 1989-1991 at Alton Geoscience in California.

He acquired a M.B.A. from Tuck School at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in 1993 and received a M.S. in geochemistry in 1989 from the University of California, Los Angeles. Bertasi was a student research fellow of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and in 1986 received a bachelors degree in geology from Colgate University in New York. He is married with three children.

With nearly 4 million customers and more than 34,000 megawatts of generating capacity, Atlanta-based Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is the premier super-regional energy company in the Southeast and a leading U.S. producer of electricity. Southern Company owns five electric utilities, a fast-growing competitive generation company and an energy services business, as well as fiber optics and wireless communications. Southern Company brands are known for excellent customer service, high reliability and retail electric prices that are 15 percent below the national average. Southern Company has more than 500,000 shareholders, making its common stock one of the most widely held in the United States. Visit the Southern Company Web site at www.southerncompany.com.