Kimberly Cook-Nelson

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Kimberly Cook-Nelson is executive vice president and chief operating officer at Entergy, where she has overall responsibility for safety, power generation, power delivery (transmission and distribution), capital projects, incident response, system planning, and other businesses in the Operations portfolio.

Prior to her current role, she was responsible for the safe, secure and reliable operations of Entergy's four nuclear power plants and five reactors located in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, serving as chief nuclear officer.

Cook-Nelson served as chief operating officer, nuclear operations from 2021 - 2022 with responsibility for Arkansas Nuclear One, River Bend and Palisades nuclear generating stations. She worked as Entergy’s vice president, system planning and operations from 2019 - 2021, where she was responsible for the local balance authority, energy marketing, commercial operations/origination, energy settlements, non-nuclear fuel purchasing and scheduling, long-term capacity planning and more.

Cook-Nelson began her career in 1996 as a design engineer at the Waterford 3 nuclear plant, later moving to the nuclear safety analysis group where she focused on work in probabilistic risk assessment and risk-informed applications. She moved into plant leadership in 2001 as a mechanical maintenance first-line supervisor, followed by operations, receiving her senior reactor operator license in 2003. Kimberly held various leadership positions of increasing responsibility in system engineering, continuous improvement, maintenance, nuclear safety assurance and operations. She was the general manager of plant operations at Waterford 3 from 2011 - 2014. She also completed a rotational assignment at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, where she qualified and functioned as an organizational effectiveness team leader and a corporate evaluator. In 2016, Cook-Nelson moved to the Entergy Nuclear headquarters office as vice president, operations support, where she was accountable for the line corporate functional area managers, training, performance improvement, organizational effectiveness, and business planning.

She has an MBA, a master's degree in engineering management and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of New Orleans. She is also an alumnus of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School. She was a licensed professional engineer and received her senior reactor operator license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for Waterford 3.

Entergy produces, transmits and distributes electricity to power life for 3 million customers through our operating companies in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. We’re investing for growth and improved reliability and resilience of our energy system while working to keep energy rates affordable for our customers. We’re also investing in cleaner energy generation like modern natural gas, nuclear and renewable energy. A nationally recognized leader in sustainability and corporate citizenship, we deliver more than $100 million in economic benefits each year to the communities we serve through philanthropy, volunteerism and advocacy. Entergy is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has approximately 12,000 employees. 

Updated May 2025