Southern Company’s annual shareholders meeting yesterday was a façade hiding the allegations of sexual misconduct and accounting fraud that has shaken up the stopgap appointments of Southern Company Chairman and CEO Chris Womack and Alabama Power Chairman and CEO Jeff Peoples.
Executives at the embattled utility must retire at 65 years of age. The retirement age is mandatory. Womack is 64 while Peoples was 63 when he was appointed in January.
The bombshell insider reports by DonaldWatkins.com has caused the senior management to try to find the leakers.
Top sources are now tightlipped and in lock down mode caused by the alleged paranoid feelings and suspicious minds of top brass.
And what has Donald Watkins reported? Bombshell after bombshell.
First on Chris Womack’s alleged sexual misconduct in 1998:
As soon as Chris Womack departed the lounge area, a distraught Rita Kennedy broke down in tears and informed [Birmingham Mayor Richard] Arrington and me that Womack had [allegedly] propositioned her for an affair. She recounted the entire conversation while wiping away tears.
Then the allegations of multiple relationships:
Throughout the years, Womack sponsored the employment and/or promotion of several women at Alabama Power, in professional and managerial positions with whom he later [allegedly] had illicit affairs. The names of these women are known to us, but we are withholding the publication of them in this article to spare them unwarranted embarrassment.
And finally, the alleged special sexual relationships that were financed allegedly through Southern Company:
At least two other special personal relationships were financed with power company money. I am withholding the names of these two women because they have done nothing wrong. Each woman reportedly submitted to a relationship with Womack that she thought was required to advance her professional and business career.
One woman is still employed as a manager for Alabama Power Company in Birmingham. Though she is well qualified for her position, she was reportedly offered the job and selected for the position because of her special personal relationship with Womack.
Another woman in a special personal relationship with Womack was placed in the Southern Company’s vendor system to provide infrastructure equipment for the installation of powerlines. She works as a diversity partner with major suppliers of the same equipment. Over the years, her business relationship as a Southern Company “pass-through” vendor has reportedly netted her several millions of dollars.
In another bombshell, Donald Watkins outlines how Womack allegedly lied and boasted of having a “special relationship” with Kim Greene, the new Chairwoman, CEO, and President of Georgia Power. Womack allegedly falsely implied that he had conquered Greene sexually, according to DonaldWatkins.com.
Watkins writes:
Unlike Chris Womack, Kimberly Greene has never acknowledged the close personal relationship that Womack claims he enjoyed with her. Furthermore, we have found no credible evidence to corroborate Womack’s disparaging comments about Greene.
Based upon the information available to us to date, it appears that Womack lied about having an intimate relationship with Kimberly Green in a misguided effort to impress men with similar shortcomings — all at the expense of Greene’s well-respected professional and personal reputation.
What is more, Kimberly Greene is a first-class chief executive officer who has far more objective credentials and successful senior management experience in the utility plant operations side of the power generation business than Chris Womack.
But joining Womack is Peoples in the alleged sexual misconduct.
As Watkins reported in March:
Reportedly, Alabama Power CEO Jeff Peoples had a propensity to spend up to $30,000 per month of the company’s money on party pads and black prostitutes at a time when this utility company was raising rates on its customers. These expenditures were reportedly funneled through … black subcontractors. None of this corporate misconduct was disclosed in the company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
retired Southern Company Chairman Tom Fanning ex-girlfriend, was paid a settlement for invasion of her privacy by a surveillance operation between 2017 and 2022.
