Joseph Nolan Jr. is the chairman, president and CEO of the state’s largest utility, Eversource Energy, which is dual headquartered in Hartford and Boston.
He began his position at the helm of Eversource in April 2021, previously serving as executive vice president of strategy and customer, and before that, as executive vice president of customer and corporate relations.
He’s overseen a number of major decisions since taking over as CEO of a publicly traded company that provides electric service to customers in Connecticut, New Hampshire and western Massachusetts. Eversource also distributes natural gas throughout Connecticut via an affiliate, Yankee Gas.
Last year, Nolan led the decision to divest Eversource’s offshore wind business, a move that was driven by increased construction costs, economic uncertainty and other factors.
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In January, Eversource also announced that it had reached a deal to get out of the water business. It plans to sell its Aquarion Water Co. subsidiary to the New Haven-based South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority in a $2.4 billion deal.
Eversource acquired Aquarion in 2017 in a deal valued at $1.7 billion.
Nolan said the sale will allow the company to pay down debt and improve its regulatory diversity.
The deal comes as Eversource remains at odds with the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority in Connecticut over the agency’s decisions to significantly reduce the utility’s recent rate requests.
The high-profile battle has led Eversource to file a lawsuit accusing PURA Chair Marissa Gillett of bypassing the authority of fellow commissioners and issuing hundreds of unilateral decisions in rate cases.
The case remains ongoing.
Nolan earned his undergraduate communications degree and MBA at Boston College. He started his career running a customer service center for the former Boston Edison Co., a small utility operator.