Business Acumen for Emerging Leaders: Opportunity (Apr 15-17)

Gillian Wright is chief human resources and administrative officer of Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas), a Sempra Energy regulated California utility. She is responsible for the SoCalGas human resources, safety, fleet, facilities, environmental services, supply management and logistics organizations.

Previously, as vice president, customer services for SoCalGas, Wright oversaw the company’s interaction with customers, including the call centers, field activities, billing and payments, and was responsible for completing a $1 billion project to deploy nearly six million advanced meters.

She joined SoCalGas as a regulatory analyst in 1999 and has served in a variety of roles in regulatory affairs and customer service for Sempra since then.

Wright is a member of the board of the California State University Foundation, LA Family Housing, Western Energy Institute and Los Angeles Business Council. She is also past chair and a former member of the board for the Energy Solutions Center and a graduate of Leadership California. Wright holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Reed College.

Jimmie Cho is chief operating officer (COO) for Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas), a Sempra Energy regulated California utility. Previously, he was senior vice president of customer service for SoCalGas and gas distribution operations for SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E). Before that, Cho held increasingly responsible management roles in the areas of gas transmission and storage operations; engineering and major projects; human resources, diversity and inclusion; customer communications, research and web strategy; safety and emergency services; and customer service field operations. In addition to his tenure with Sempra Energy, he formerly served as director of resource conservation and public outreach at the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, a member agency of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and started his professional career as a project engineer for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. Cho serves on the board of directors of the National Utilities Diversity Council. He holds a bachelor’s degree in geology from Brown University and a master’s degree in civil engineering from Stanford University.

Brandon Besch has been with SCE since 2004 when he joined the company as an Electrical Engineer working on substation automation projects. Shortly after joining SCE he participated in an engineering job rotation program that gave him experience in areas such as Transmission and Interconnection Planning, Protection Engineering and ultimately Distribution Field Engineering.

In 2008, Brandon joined the Substation Construction and Maintenance organization as a Construction Project Manager working on a wide variety of capital projects that ranged from new substations, to infrastructure upgrades, to large scale substation expansions and rebuilds.

Starting in 2012 Brandon moved into leadership roles in Substation Construction, initially spending several years managing the Substation Construction Project Management group where his organization was responsible for managing hundreds of SCE’s annual substation construction and infrastructure upgrade projects. In 2016 Brandon transitioned to a new role leading Substation Construction Field Forces, where he was responsible for an organization of 175 craft personnel that perform a wide variety of construction activities on capital projects.

In January 2019 Brandon moved into the role of Principal Manager of Substation Construction where he was responsible for the Construction Management, Field Forces, Material Operations, Start-Up Engineering and Quality Control.

Most recently, Brandon was assigned to a new role in Substation Construction & Maintenance as the Principal Manager of Work Management and Technical Services, where he is responsible for the construction management, strategic planning and performance management for the organization as well as the compliance and maintenance programs and technical support of field operations.

Outside of work Brandon enjoys traveling with his wife, and taking advantage of California’s many outdoor activities like camping, hiking, backpacking, skiing, and surfing.