Meredith Lackey serves as a key senior executive with Southern Company (NYSE: SO), a Fortune 200 diversified energy company with annual revenues exceeding $25B, where she has held a wide range of leadership roles including SVP, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary, EVP of External Affairs and Nuclear Development, and Chief Compliance Officer. She currently leads Southern’s system-wide compliance efforts, including initiatives around AI Governance, data privacy, compliance risk assessment and mitigation, and third-party risk management. Throughout her 25-year career, she has served as an accomplished business leader and key advisor to the Board for companies operating in complex legal and regulatory environments, with a unique combination of legal and non-legal roles within both public and private industrial organizations. Meredith possesses a unique combination of broad-based legal, compliance, governance, human resources, risk management and regulatory affairs business expertise.
Meredith joined the Southern Company in 2016 as SVP, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary for Georgia Power Company, Southern’s largest operating subsidiary, and has since been promoted to roles with increasing responsibility, including Georgia Power’s EVP, External Affairs and Nuclear Development. Her accomplishments include leading Georgia Power’s 2022 operations strategic plan, which charted a transformational fleet transition for Georgia Power’s operations and led the filing of its 2022 rate case with the Georgia Public Services Commission (GPSC), which resulted in a 3-year rate order that supported key investments in grid resiliency, renewables and fleet transition, and operational improvements. Meredith also led the company’s 2024 prudence proceeding before the GPSC on rate recovery for the construction of the country’s first new nuclear units in over 30 years, Plant Vogtle Units 3 & 4, resulting in recovery of over $7.5 billion of capital and construction costs.
In her role as the chief legal and compliance officer for two major energy companies, she transformed the legal departments to high-performing teams, in each case resulting in significant cost savings and improved legal support for and alignment with the company’s business strategy. She has played a critical role in corporate governance for both public and private companies, serving as Corporate Secretary and advisor to the Board as well as audit and operations committees on key issues regarding effective governance as well as legal, regulatory, and enterprise risks.
Prior to moving in-house, Meredith worked as a commercial litigator for two international law firms, Baker Botts in Washington, D.C., and Jones Day in Atlanta, Georgia.
Throughout her career, Meredith has been dedicated to serving her community and was appointed by two Governors first to serve on the Georgia Judicial Nominating Commission and then to serve on the Grace Commission (targeted at fighting human trafficking). She has been actively involved in organizations that support women and children including serving on the boards of Camp Twin Lakes, the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, and Breakthru House.