Growing up, Janet Rehberg always imagined a career as a broadcast journalist.
As a small child, she idolized famed news anchor Connie Chung, but fate had another career path in mind for Rehberg who quickly rose through the ranks of the electric utility industry.
Today, Rehberg, MBA ’09, serves as president and CEO-elect for Chattanooga-based EPB, an energy and communications provider with a 600-square-mile service area and a reputation for having the nation’s most advanced automated electric grid and the world’s fastest internet. She will assume the role of CEO in September 2026.
Rehberg, 44, credits her parents, Vietnamese immigrants Thuan and Hong Phan, with instilling a strong work ethic in her. She acknowledges that her father always imagined that she would someday be a CEO but neither expected her to achieve it so soon in her career.
She says her father was the inspiration for her career choice. Rehberg, a native of Fort Smith, Ark., says it was his dream to be an electrical engineer. That goal was dashed when he was drafted by the Vietnamese military. When he and Rehberg’s mother came to the U.S., he decided to pursue the dream again, but obtaining a college degree while supporting a young family was out of reach.
So, when the time came for Rehberg to declare a major she decided, “Why not pursue my dad’s dream?” She earned an electrical engineering degree from the University of Tulsa in 2004 and was offered a full ride to attend graduate school there and obtain her master’s in engineering.
During the summer before grad school, her supervisor at an internship with American Electric Power in Tulsa offered her a full-time position and encouraged her to pursue an MBA that the company would sponsor. After working full-time for two years, she was recruited to join AEP’s headquarters in Columbus, where she continued her graduate studies, transferring her MBA program from the University of Tulsa to Capital University. She says it was an easy choice.
“Capital is very convenient for working adults,” she says. “I absolutely loved Capital’s program.”
She says she thrived on the application-based classes that replicated what she would be doing in the workforce. “Things I learned, I still use today,” Rehberg says. “They were very big on the types of teamwork used in solving real-world problems.”
Thanks to her Capital University education, she was able to catapult her career when a new role came up at AEP a few months after graduating. Rehberg says the hiring manager told her he was looking for “people who think as a business owner would” – skills she had acquired by earning her MBA.
Rehberg has fond memories of Professor Maureen Metcalf who taught organizational behavior and where she learned not only to reflect on business principles but also individual behaviors and how they impact performance. “It was so interesting to me,” she says, adding that she has since engaged Metcalf to be a guest speaker at a company she worked for.
The foundation she learned at Capital, as well as her undergraduate degree and occupations, have played strong roles in her career growth. In addition to serving as a distribution engineer, she has assumed roles as manager of consumer programs, director of cooperative development and chief strategy officer/vice president of engineering. While she says her solid technical background is especially important, “as you advance in leadership, the technical background is no longer as important as the strategy and business mindset.”
Building her business acumen has complemented her technology skills, which has earned her trust and respect from her employees.
Rehberg attributes much of her career success to the power of networking, but says, “It isn’t about who you know, but who knows you.”
She says many of the roles she has held were possible because she was recruited by connections she met along the way, including her current position. The outgoing CEO was scouting for the next president and CEO while at a conference in 2024. Networking, she says, involves creating an impression, following through and building credibility.
Rehberg’s natural ability to relate to people and strong communication skills have undoubtedly also propelled her. But, again, it’s advice from her father that is her leadership mantra. He taught me to be the kind of leader for whom your team is willing to die with you, not for you—a principle grounded in trust, shared purpose and genuine respect.