David M. Ratcliffe
GRA Chair Emeritus and Retired Chairman and CEO
Southern Company
David Ratcliffe is the retired chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Southern Company, one of America's largest electricity producers.
David joined Georgia Power as a biologist in 1971. His forty-year career spanned multiple executive leadership roles across Southern Company's subsidiaries, Mississippi Power and Georgia Power.
Widely recognized for his leadership within the U.S. electric utility industry, David is past chairman of the Edison Electric Institute. He received the Distinguished Leadership Award from EEI and the William S. Lee Award for Leadership from the Nuclear Energy Institute. He also received the Ethics Advocate Award from The Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at Georgia State University.
A native of Tifton, Georgia, David received a bachelor's degree in biology from Valdosta State University in 1970. He received a law degree from Woodrow Wilson College of Law in 1975 and is a member of the Georgia Bar Association.
In addition to being the Georgia Research Alliance's board chairman, he currently serves on the Truist and Urjanet boards. Previously, David has served as the past chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. He has also served on the Center for Civil and Human Rights, the Centers for Disease Control Foundation, Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the Woodruff Arts Center, the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, and the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, EEI, and NEI.
