With 27 years in the utility industry and more than 30 years of communications expertise, Sandy Nessing has responsibility for leading corporate ESG/Sustainability strategy and disclosure, stakeholder engagement and strategic initiatives for American Electric Power (AEP). She sponsors AEP’s Enterprise Sustainability Council and chairs the Corporate ESG Steering Committee; she also serves on the Company’s Risk and Resilience Subcommittee, Enterprise R&D Steering Committee, and facilitates AEP’s Climate Change Executive Group. In 2023, she was named to Sustainability Magazine’s Top 100 Women in Sustainability. In 2024, she received the Charles H. Moore Award for Leadership in Corporate Community Engagement from Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose.
She oversees corporate initiatives on climate change, environmental and social justice, and Just Transition; she regularly engages investors on ESG and leads AEP’s engagement with Climate Action 100+. In partnership with AEP’s Finance team, Nessing helped to craft AEP’s Sustainable Finance Framework, combining green bonds with social bonds to support the company’s clean energy transition. Through the Framework the company secured $1.45 billion in green bonds to support its largest wind energy facilities, serving customers in three states.
Nessing is active with the Electric Power Research Institute’s sustainability-related research initiatives and is a member of its Sustainability Leadership Council. She Co-Chairs the Edison Electric Institute’s (EEI) ESG/Sustainability Committee and its Chief Sustainability Officers Committee. She serves on the Board of Directors of Datamaran, an ESG AI platform, and the Board of Directors of the Midwest Renewable Energy Tracking System (M-RETS). Nessing has also held leadership roles with the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus, Ohio and NAEM.
She is a graduate of Briarwood College in Connecticut and DeVry University.
