Southern California Gas Co.’s new chief executive Bret Lane on Jan. 7 announced two members of his leadership team: Maryam Brown as president and Jimmie Cho as chief operating officer.

Brown and Cho succeed Lane, who held both posts until he was appointed chief executive of the Los Angeles gas utility last month.

Southern California Gas Co. is the downtown Los Angeles-headquartered unit of San Diego-based Sempra Energy that provides natural gas to nearly 22 million customers across 24,000 square miles of Central and Southern California.

Brown, 43, currently serves as vice president of federal government affairs for Sempra Energy. Prior to joining Sempra in 2016, she served as the senior energy and environment counsel for the office of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the last of three policy advisory posts she held in Washington. Brown will assume the SoCal Gas president post at a future date to be announced.

Cho, 54 and a 28-year veteran of Sempra’s various utility units, is currently senior vice president of customer services for SoCalGas and senior vice president of distribution operations for SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), another unit of Sempra Energy. He assumes the chief operating officer post at SoCal Gas on Jan. 12.

“Today’s announcement of these executive appointments strengthens our leadership team with a balance of deep operational and energy policy experience,” Lane said in the announcement.

Education, energy, engineering/construction and infrastructure reporter Howard Fine can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @howardafine.