Our Leadership

Ralph Cleveland

President and CEO of the American Association of Blacks in Energy

Ralph Cleveland was named President and CEO of the American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE) in March 2022. The American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE) is the national association of energy professionals founded and dedicated to ensuring the input of African Americans and other minorities into the discussions and developments of energy policies regulations, R&D technologies, and environmental issues. The purposes of AABE are: 1) to serve as a resource for policy discussion of the economic, social, and political impact of environmental and energy policies on African Americans and other minorities; 2) to ensure involvement of African Americans in governmental energy policymaking by recommending capable sensitive and informed personnel to appropriate officials; and 3) to encourage both the public and private sectors to be responsive to the problems, goals and aspirations of African Americans in energy-related fields; and 4) to encourage African American students to pursue careers in energy-related fields and to provide scholarships and other financial aid for such students. The organization boasts 39 local chapters, nationwide, with over 1600 active members.

 

Mr. Cleveland is also currently serving as a member of the board of the National Energy Foundation and the Alliance to Save Energy, as well as serving as a Council Member of the National Petroleum Council. He also previously served as the Chairman and CEO of the North American Energy Standards Board.

 

Cleveland has 35+ years of experience in the energy and infrastructure sector in various corporate and industry roles. For ten years, he was responsible for centralized utility operations and shared services for then AGL Resources, now Southern Company Gas, which included: engineering, construction, environmental health and safety, crisis management, business continuity planning, supply chain, supplier development, supplier diversity, project management, and high consequence operations such as gas operations, gas storage and transmission operations. Mr. Cleveland also served as President of Nicor Gas which serves 2.2 million customers in northern Illinois and had profit and loss responsibility for the business unit.

 

Previous to his roles as Nicor Gas President and corporate SVP/EVP, Cleveland served as vice-president of operations for the then newly acquired subsidiary utility, Virginia Natural Gas, where he was responsible for post-merger integration of operations and engineering activities as well as executive oversight of field service, distribution operations, local engineering design and construction, pipeline operations, propane peak shaving operations and customer operations including customer contact center and collections activities.

 

Before his work in local gas distribution, he spent well over a decade in oil and gas research, development, and production; natural gas processing; and petrochemical industries, in various engineering, operations, operations risk management, and line management roles.

 

He also currently serves as Senior Managing Director and CEO of Cleveland and Associates, a consulting firm dedicated to empowering businesses and corporate leaders in strategic growth, transformation, and scale operations, and he is the President and CEO of S.L.King Technologies, a consulting firm which provides premier services in planning, design, construction management, asset management, data management, business process management, energy resource management, and information technology. Before these roles, Cleveland served four years as the Global Head of Customer Operations, Business Transformation, and Supply Chain for Fortune 50 American International Group (AIG). In this role, Cleveland had responsibility for responsibility for over 16,000 employees and $1.4 billion in general operating expenses for AIG Commercial and Consumer Insurance. He developed and matured functional operations for Contact Centers, Client and Policy Servicing and Collections, Sourcing and Procurement, Risk and Control Services, and Operations Services. His Business Transformation responsibility included managing an investment program portfolio of $250 million in expenses and $800 million in capital investment, annually. These responsibilities included developing and implementing AIG’s global target operating model. Cleveland also held responsibility for the development of the property and casualty global operations shared services and back office processing centers for three years.

 

Mr. Cleveland has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Blacks in Corporate America by SaVoy Magazine and an Outstanding Georgia Citizen by the Secretary of the State of Georgia and was inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

 

A native of Macon, Georgia, Mr. Cleveland received his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech, completed post-graduate studies in mechanical engineering at Rice University in Houston, TX, and received his master’s degree in business administration from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA.

Terms of Use   |   © Copyright 2025 American Association of Blacks in Energy. Site by Filnet.