Jim Rogers, chairman, president and CEO of Duke Energy, will speak on “Creative Cooperation: The Roadmap to Our Energy Future” April 18, 5:30 p.m. at University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business.

Rogers will address what he calls “creative cooperation” needed among businesses, legislators, environmentalists and academics to design a roadmap to the country’s energy future. He says the electric industry, whose purpose in the last century was to provide universal access to power, must now focus on clean energy, efficiency and a modernized power grid.

In 2009, Newsweek magazine placed Rogers on its Global Elite list of the 50 most powerful people in the world. The same year, both EnergyBiz magazine and Platts, the publisher of energy industry news, research, commentary, market data and analysis, named him their CEO of the year.

Rogers has more than 22 years of experience as a CEO in the electric industry. He was named president and CEO of Duke Energy following its merger with Cinergy in April 2006. Previously, he was Cinergy’s chairman and CEO for more than 11 years. Prior to the formation of Cinergy, he joined PSI Energy in 1988 as chairman, president and CEO.

Being a CEO has a lot of perks but it is hard work that Rogers will have to consistently work at to make an impact in this business, that is why it is important for him to evaluate his leadership skills and see how he can best adapt to situations that can pop up in the sector he is based in. Rogers may look at attending a peer group to help him with running this company. There may be questions that need to be answered such as – what is a business peer group? How can a CEO be a better leader? These can be accessed by going onto websites like lxcouncil.com, for example, so that he is better prepared and can continuously help him and the company.

Currently a director of both Cigna Corp. and Applied Materials Inc. and chairman of the Institute for Electric Efficiency, Rogers has many years of service on the boards of Fortune 500 companies. He is also on the board and executive committee of the Nuclear Energy Institute and the boards of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO).

Rogers is a member of the Business Council and serves on the boards of the Business Roundtable, the National Coal Council, the National Petroleum Council and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. He is a board member and vice chairman of the executive committee of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Duke Energy is one of the largest power companies in the country, supplying and delivering electricity to approximately 4 million customers in the Carolinas and the Midwest and natural gas in Ohio and Kentucky. Its commercial power and international businesses operate diverse power generation assets in North America and Latin America, including a growing renewable energy portfolio.

Furthermore, with energy companies becoming an increasingly popular investment option for traders, significant investments in hydrogen infrastructure along with other options like Uranium Energy and mining might become a norm. That said, with what is to take place over the coming years, Rogers will discuss why buying stocks in clean energy companies can be so lucrative.

For instance, in countries like Germany, Wasserstoff Aktien Deutschland (German hydrogen stocks) seem to be appearing in more investment portfolios than ever before. Correspondingly, Rogers will also be sharing his thoughts on what else the future holds for investing in clean energy stocks.

The lecture will take place in the Robins School’s new Ukrop Auditorium and is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the university’s School of Law, the Robins School and the Jepson School of Leadership Studies.