Amid a flurry of criticism over increased costs for Baltimore Gas & Electric customers, the public utility is making a change at the top.

BGE’s CEO, Carim Khouzami, will move to a position at parent company Exelon, and Tamla Olivier, an executive with Pepco Holdings, will become the company’s new CEO, the company announced Thursday.

Consumers and public officials from many corners have denounced BGE in recent months as customers’ bills have grown. BGE services more than 1.3 million electric customers and 700,000 gas customers in central Maryland, according to a BGE news release.

Olivier joined Exelon about 15 years ago and has been the senior vice president and chief operating officer of Pepco Holdings — another subsidiary of Exelon — since 2021. The release notes that during her time at Pepco, the company built “large-scale infrastructure upgrades,” including a substation and a transmission project.

Olivier and Khouzami will begin their new roles on May 1.

“I’m excited to partner with BGE’s dedicated team to ensure our customers continue to count on us as one of the most reliable and responsive utilities in the country,” Olivier said in a statement.

Khouzami, who had been president and CEO since 2019, will become Exelon’s executive vice president of Transmission and Development. His new position is a “lateral move,” BGE spokesperson Nick Alexopulos said.

Prior to Khouzami’s five years as CEO of BGE, Calvin Butler was the company’s top executive from 2014 to 2019. He is now president and CEO of Exelon.

“Carim’s expertise in identifying opportunities and building successful models in periods of transformation is especially needed in our current industry environment,” Butler said in a statement. “Tamla’s customer focus and skills in nurturing a high-engagement, high-performance culture will ensure BGE’s customers, employees and communities in central Maryland thrive.”

Exelon, based in Chicago, is the parent company of utilities including BGE, Pepco and Delmarva Power. (Constellation Energy, headquartered in Baltimore, spun off from Exelon in 2022).

BGE has recently drawn the ire of some rate payers, who have seen bills increase in recent months due to several factors. That trend is expected to continue.

The “leadership changes are part of Exelon’s overall strategy,” and are not tied to recent scrutiny of BGE, Alexopulos said.

BGE has argued that a more expensive supply of energy, plus an especially cold winter, caused bills to increase.

The Maryland Office of the People’s Counsel, a consumer watchdog, has instead pegged delivery charges — meaning the way energy is distributed to customers — as the primary culprit. Those charges increase, for example, when the utility completes expensive infrastructure projects such as improving or replacing natural gas pipelines. The People’s Counsel has found that gas delivery costs have increased more than 50% since 2020.

Public utilities are regulated by the Maryland Public Service Commission, which approves BGE’s construction plans. The PSC, made up of five people appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate, is an independent administrative agency.

Elected officials at the federal, state and city level have recently taken aim at BGE. The latest salvo from the Baltimore City Council came Wednesday, one day before BGE announced its CEO switch.

Following reporting from The Baltimore Banner and other outlets that a BGE employee falsified inspection reports, council members called for a hearing “to examine the safety consequences of BGE’s failure and to understand how much of customers’ money was wasted as a result.”