COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 12, 2015 – American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) has named Stephan T. Haynes senior vice president - Strategic Initiatives and Chief Risk Officer effective Aug. 3. Haynes, 54, was promoted from vice president - Strategic Initiatives and Chief Risk Officer, a position he has held since January 2008. Haynes will continue to report to Brian Tierney, executive vice president and chief financial officer. 

Haynes is responsible for all risk management functions and also for strategic analysis for new business opportunities. He also serves on the board of managers for the Transource and PATH Transmission joint ventures and previously served as treasurer of the PATH, Electric Transmission Texas and Electric Transmission America joint ventures.

“Steve and his team have done an incredible job identifying, analyzing and developing mitigation strategies for risk events that could impact AEP. He also has helped the company evaluate strategic opportunities to grow our business and to move our transmission joint ventures forward,” Tierney said.

From May 2004 through December 2007, Haynes was assistant treasurer for AEP with responsibilities for cash management, market risk activities, trusts and investments, and the planning and execution of AEP's corporate financing programs, including debt and equity instruments and banking relationships. Haynes also has served as vice president - Market Risk Oversight, managing director - Risk Oversight, managing director - Corporate Finance; manager - Corporate Finance, and held other positions in investor relations and information systems. He began his career at AEP in 1984 as a programmer in the information systems department.

Haynes earned his master's degree in business administration from The Ohio State University, where he was named a Weidler Scholar for placing in the top 5 percent of the class, and holds a bachelor of business systems analysis degree, summa cum laude, from Harding University. He has completed the AEP Management Development Program at Ohio State and the Darden Program at the University of Virginia.

American Electric Power is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to nearly 5.4 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 32,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a more than 40,000-mile network that includes more 765-kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined. AEP’s transmission system directly or indirectly serves about 10 percent of the electricity demand in the Eastern Interconnection, the interconnected transmission system that covers 38 eastern and central U.S. states and eastern Canada, and approximately 11 percent of the electricity demand in ERCOT, the transmission system that covers much of Texas. AEP’s utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east Texas). AEP’s headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio.