Mike Renna
Retired CEO
South Jersey Industries
Ask Mike Renna what made his run atop SJI work, and he goes back to the beginning.
When he became CEO in 2015, SJI’s earnings were split almost evenly between its gas utility and a collection of non-utility businesses. Renna made a hard call.
“One of the first things we did when I became CEO was downsize and divest of a lot of our non-utility businesses,” he said.
That move, he said, was “the foundation for everything that came after it.”
Renna spent nearly 30 years at SJI, the Folsom-based energy company, before retiring as CEO in August. He joined in 1998, spent his first 15 years on the non-utility side and was named president and Chief Operating Officer in 2014. A year later, he was running the company.
He built a foundation.
Renna put SJI’s money into modernizing its gas system, especially replacing aging pipe. Today, roughly 90% of the company’s earnings come from the utility, a sharp turn from the 50-50 split he inherited.
He built across the state.
SJI acquired Elizabethtown Gas, bringing North and South Jersey utility operations together under one company for the first time and putting Elizabethtown back under New Jersey ownership.
“We blended two companies, and while they are in the same state, North and South Jersey are very different,” he said. “We took the best of both, and kind of harmonized our processes and our approach and our systems.”
He built for what’s next.
Under Renna, SJI grew a renewable natural gas platform that he said ranks among the largest in the country. It turns food waste and manure from about 20 dairies into pipeline gas. Its flagship, the Linden Renewable Energy Project, will be the largest facility of its kind in North America when it comes online, according to the company.
He built a team.
Renna is quick to share credit, naming Melissa Orsen, Nick DiRocco, Krystle Straus “and so many others” for helping rebrand the company and win the confidence of investors. He said the last big job was making sure SJI was in good hands.
“For me, the most important thing was getting the right leader in place, and I really believe we got that,” he said.
He also kept telling a hard truth about energy bills: utilities don’t profit when supply costs rise.
“There’s this assumption that we’re somehow benefiting from these cost increases,” he said. “We’re not.”
His retirement was true to form.
“There’s not going to be any Michael Jordan farewell tour,” he said before stepping down. He worked right up until Aug. 3. Now he’s chair of the board of trustees at the Hun School of Princeton, where both of his sons played football. This fall, he’s coaching the offensive and defensive lines.
This year, the choice was clear. For remaking SJI into a modern utility, uniting North and South Jersey under one company and building for the energy future, Mike Renna is the Top Utility Executive on the BINJE’s Best: Top Utility and Infrastructure Leaders list.
