CenterPoint Recruits Quanta Executive to be COO
CenterPoint Energy Inc. has recruited its new chief operating officer from Quanta Services Inc., filling a key role held by President and CEO Jason Wells until he was promoted at the beginning of last year.
Preparing to join Houston-based CenterPoint next month is Jesus Soto Jr., who has been executive vice president of Quanta’s Utility Performance Solutions group since October 2023. Before that, he was COO of Quanta subsidiary Mears Group Inc. for four years and senior VP of gas operations at PG&E Corp. from the spring of 2012 to mid-2019.
“We are pleased to be able to welcome a leader of Jesus Soto’s caliber,” Wells said in a statement. “Jesus’ deep understanding and background are the perfect match to help us deliver [the] incredible scope of work at-pace that will foster the economic development and growth demands in our key markets.”
Soto, 58, is a longtime resident of Houston and prior to his time with PG&E worked at the former El Paso Corp. that was based in the Space City. He will start with CenterPoint Aug. 11 and will be paid a base salary of $725,000 and be eligible for the company’s executive incentive plans. To make up for the Quanta equity he is forfeiting by leaving the infrastructure giant, CenterPoint also is giving him restricted stock worth $6 million that will vest over his first four years with the company.
Soto arrives at CenterPoint—which serves about 7 million customers in Texas, Indiana, Ohio and Minnesota—as the company is investing more than $31 billion over the next five years. A very visible element of that plan is work in its headquarters city to improve its hurricane preparedness strategy in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, which cost the company more than $1.2 billion.
“We have an incredible amount of capital work ahead of us to help meet the growing energy needs of our customers and communities, especially across Texas. To help realize our resiliency and growth goals, I look forward to helping our teams deliver this work safely while helping our customers experience better outcomes,” Soto said. “They expect, and deserve, no less.”
Shares of CenterPoint (Ticker: CNP) rose slightly July 21 to $37.42. Over the past six months, they have gained 13%, growing the company’s market capitalization to about $24.4 billion.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of business journalism experience and writes about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications T&D World, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, FleetOwner and Oil & Gas Journal. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati and later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector as well as many of its publicly traded companies.