FirstEnergy Welcomes John Combs as Senior Vice President, Shared Services
April 16, 2024
| Ernie Maley Set to Retire August 1
Among the areas of responsibility John will assume are those of Ernie Maley, Vice President and CIO, who is retiring August 1 after more than two decades with FirstEnergy. Ernie joined the company in 2002 as director, Infrastructure Services for IT, and was promoted to a number of leadership positions of increasing responsibility. Early in 2022, he gained responsibility for the Innovation & Digital Factory group and was promoted to his current position in May 2022. Prior to joining FirstEnergy, he worked for Deloitte & Touche Consulting in its Utility and Energy Services practice. |
The company today announced John Combs has been named Senior Vice President, Shared Services, effective April 22. John will have responsibility for the broad IT organization – Cyber Security, Corporate Security and Information Technology, and Innovation & Digital Factory – as well as Supply Chain, the Transformation Office and Flight Operations. He will report directly to Brian Tierney, President and Chief Executive Officer.
John most recently served as Senior Vice President, Managing Director & General Manager, Chief Technology Officer of Enterprise Technology Services, at JPMorgan Chase & Co. John brings more than 25 years of experience in building, transforming and leading teams, products, technology platforms and services while ensuring regulatory and compliance needs are met and balanced with operational reliability, security and sustainability.
“John is a dynamic leader whose unique blend of technology, business and financial skills and experience in guiding large organizations through technology modernization and digital transformation make him a strong addition to the FirstEnergy leadership team,” said Brian. “His unrelenting customer focus and proven track record of driving process improvements by assessing business needs, identifying industry and emerging technology trends and collaborating on innovative solutions will help our organization more nimbly capture market opportunities.”
In addition to filling the shared services leadership position, we are close to wrapping up the search for the four state president roles (OH, PA, NJ and combined WV/MD) and the president of our stand-alone transmission business. We will share more information as individuals are appointed to these positions over the next several weeks.
Mark Mroczynski, acting vice president, Operations, will play a key role onboarding John during this transitional time and will continue to play an important role in the future as part of our company’s ongoing transformation.
John Combs’ Background
Prior to joining FirstEnergy, John held the position of Managing Director, General Manager and CTO of Enterprise Technology Services for JPMorgan Chase & Co. He was named to this role in 2018 and previously spent 16 years with Wolters Kluwer, a global leader in professional information, software solutions, and services for the healthcare, tax and accounting, financial and corporate compliance, legal and regulatory, and corporate performance and ESG sectors.
Earlier in his career, he held IT positions with Telecommunication Systems, Legg Mason, Sony Electronics, and United Parcel Service. John earned a Master of Business Administration from the Rochester Institute of Technology and achieved a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.