Christy Ihrig will take the VP-corporate communications post at Southern Co., the $17B electrical utility, on Jan. 1.

christy ihrigThe 41-year-old joined the Atlanta-based company in 1998 and has held media/external relations, issues at its Mississippi Power, Georgia Power and Southern Company Energy Marketing units.

Earlier, she was at San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Co., Sharp HealthCare and Emory Healthcare.

Tom Fanning, CEO, said in a statement that Ihrig has the "strategic vision needed to communicate the superior value" that Southern Co. and its subsidiaries provide to customers and shareholders."

Southern Co. also has upped Bryan Anderson from VP to senior VP-government affairs at the D.C. outpost of the company that has more than 4.4M customers in the southeast.

Southern is slated to complete construction of the country's first 21st Century nuclear reactors in 2017 and 2018. The Georgia facilities are a $10B investment.

A state-of-the-art coal to gas plant is underway in Mississippi.