Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe
Executive Vice President,
Chief Legal Officer
and Corporate Secretary
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Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe serves as executive vice president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary for Duke Energy. He is the primary legal advisor to Duke Energy’s board of directors and senior management, and he leads the Office of the General Counsel, which includes the company’s legal, corporate governance, internal audit, and ethics and compliance functions. Additionally, he is responsible for the administrative services function, which includes the real estate, land services, aviation and support services organizations.
Prior to being named chief legal officer in October 2019 and corporate secretary in May 2020, Ghartey-Tagoe served as president of Duke Energy’s utility operations in South Carolina, which serves approximately 800,000 electric retail customers and 157,000 natural gas customers. He was responsible for the financial performance of Duke Energy’s regulated electric utilities in South Carolina and managing state and local regulatory and government relations, and community affairs. He also had responsibility for advancing the company’s legislative and regulatory initiatives related to its electric operations.
Joining the company in 2002 as chief regulatory counsel for Duke Power, Ghartey-Tagoe has held numerous leadership positions in the legal department covering several areas of legal services to Duke Energy. He served as Duke Energy’s senior vice president of state and federal regulatory legal support; general counsel for litigation; and vice president, legal, for Duke Energy’s Commercial Businesses organization. He also served as vice president, legal-state regulation for Duke Energy’s franchised electric and gas business. Before joining the company, Ghartey-Tagoe was a partner with McGuireWoods LLP in Richmond, Va.
Ghartey-Tagoe serves on the board of directors of Energy Insurance Mutual, Ltd., the board of visitors of Duke University Law School and on the President’s Advisory Board of Clemson University. He is also on the boards of TreesCharlotte and Charlotte Center City Partners. In 2000, Ghartey-Tagoe was appointed by Gov. Gilmore of Virginia to serve on the board of visitors of Virginia State University, one of the nation’s most venerated historically black institutions of higher learning. He served on that board for three years.
In 2013, Ghartey-Tagoe received the Diversity Champion Award from the Charlotte Business Journal, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund honored him with an Award of Excellence for his outstanding achievements in the legal profession and his dedication to diversity in the workplace.
A native of Ghana, Ghartey-Tagoe earned a Juris Doctor from Duke University and a Bachelor of Arts degree, with joint honors in economics and finance, from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He also completed the Advanced Management Program at the Wharton School of Business. In 2017, Ghartey-Tagoe was conferred an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree by Francis Marion University. Ghartey-Tagoe and his wife, Phyllis, have three daughters.