Shelee Kimura

Shelee Kimura is the president and chief executive officer of Hawaiian Electric, which serves 95% of Hawaii’s population on the islands of Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, Lanai and Molokai and is committed to serving communities with safe, affordable, reliable clean energy.

Shelee was appointed to her current role in January 2022 and previously served as senior vice president of Customer Service & Public Affairs and senior vice president of Business Development & Strategic Planning. She provided leadership for the company’s customer care initiatives through the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn, making equity and access a top priority while improving customer satisfaction and stakeholder engagement. She led the development of Hawaiian Electric’s 2015- 2020 Strategic Transformation Plan. During that period, she strengthened and grew the Hawaii market for affordable, clean energy resources and launched the electric transportation division, which will play a critical role to help decarbonize Hawaii’s economy.

Before joining Hawaiian Electric, Shelee led Investor Relations and Strategic Planning at Hawaiian Electric Industries (HEI), the parent company of Hawaiian Electric and the largest publicly traded company in Hawaii. She previously worked as HEI’s director of corporate finance and investments and prior to that was a consulting manager at Arthur Andersen and its successor firm in Honolulu, KMH LLP.

Shelee was honored in 2020 as one of three women selected for the Girl Scouts of Hawaii Women of Distinction, an award that recognizes the achievements of women who demonstrate courage, confidence and character. In 2016, she was honored with the Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Business award by the U.S. Department of Energy, in collaboration with the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy and the MIT Energy Initiative.

Shelee received her bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she was a presidential scholar. She is an executive education graduate of the Advanced Management Program of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.