Only Utility Leader Among Best for Seven Straight Years in CEO CandorSM Survey

New Orleans, La. – J. Wayne Leonard, chairman and chief executive officer of Entergy Corporation, ranks second highest among CEOs for the candor and clarity of his letter to shareholders, according to the latest analysis conducted by Rittenhouse Rankings, Inc. of the annual letters from CEOs of 100 companies listed in the Fortune 500.

Leonard is the only utility CEO to have been ranked among the top 25 for seven consecutive years in the Rittenhouse CEO CandorSM Survey, which analyzes annual CEO letters and demonstrates a link between the quality of the letter’s content and a company’s performance.

Leonard is also one of only three CEOs to make the top five in each of the last three surveys. The latest survey analyzed letters that appeared in 2007 annual reports, most of which were issued in the first half of 2008.

“Leonard isn’t afraid to be accountable. He lays out numerous performance benchmarks and tells readers how they were met. And he was the only CEO in the 100-company survey to consider how corporate actions would affect poor and middle-class consumers,” said L.J. Rittenhouse, president of the investor relations consulting firm.

The survey is an annual evaluation of candor in the letter to shareholders in annual reports of 100 companies across a diverse group of industries and capitalization levels. The letters are judged on their clarity and depth based on a broad cross section of indices -- from strategy to cash on hand to adversity. Rittenhouse Rankings uses those measures as a proxy for the overall viability and health of the company.

“Straightforward communications should be a big part of the job of any CEO, and it’s not just for shareholders,” Leonard said. “Words mean different things to different people. You never get it perfect; nevertheless, we at Entergy always make the extra effort to assure we communicate the complete, unvarnished story to all of our stakeholders – whether it’s in Washington, D.C., or Silver City, Miss. – no matter how uncomfortable it may be. It is the only way to run a business, particularly a public company affected with the public interest.

“For our employees, it’s a two-way street. We insist on a culture where only the truth will do. In return, they can expect their company to live by the same values we expect from them,” Leonard said.

Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, and it is the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $13 billion and approximately 14,700 employees.

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