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ALLENTOWN, Pa., Aug. 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL) announced Friday (8/1) that Rodney C. Adkins, an executive with more than 30 years of service at IBM, is joining the company's board of directors, effective today.

Adkins, who will retire from IBM at the end of this year, is currently serving as senior vice president with a focus on special corporate projects and key client relationships. Until April of this year, he was senior vice president of Corporate Strategy, with responsibility for leading continuous transformation and developing strategies and plans linked to a new era of computing, new markets and new clients for IBM.

"Rod will be an excellent addition to our strong PPL board of directors," said William H. Spence, PPL chairman, president and Chief Executive Officer. "His technical knowledge and his experience in developing and implementing strategic plans will be very valuable assets as we continue the transformation of PPL Corporation."

His 33 years of experience at IBM have included leading global teams, managing multi-billion-dollar business units and delivering a variety of product innovations and enterprise solutions.

Prior to being named senior vice president of Corporate Strategy in 2013, he served as senior vice president of the Systems and Technology Group for four years. In that role, he was responsible for all aspects of IBM's semiconductor, server, storage and systems software businesses, as well as the company's supply chain and global business partner organizations.

Adkins also held a number of product management and executive roles at IBM, including running the Desktop PC and UNIX Systems businesses, and he was general manager of the Pervasive Computing division.

A native of Miami, Adkins, 55, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Executive Leadership Council, and the National Society of Black Engineers, which awarded him a lifetime achievement honor in 2001. In 2011, Black Enterprise magazine chose Adkins as its corporate executive of the year.

He also serves on the boards of directors of United Parcel Service Inc. and W.W. Grainger Inc., the national board of the Smithsonian Institution, and the board of directors of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering.

Adkins earned a bachelor of arts degree with an emphasis in physics from Rollins College and bachelor and master of science degrees in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

His appointment will bring PPL's total board membership to 14, 13 of whom are outside, independent directors.  The board expects to appoint Adkins to the Audit Committee in 2015.

PPL Corporation, with 2013 revenues of $12 billion, is one of the largest companies in the U.S. utility sector. The PPL family of companies delivers electricity and natural gas to about 10 million customers in the United States and the United Kingdom. PPL recently announced an agreement to spin off its competitive generation business and combine it with the competitive generation business of Riverstone Holdings LLC to form Talen Energy Corporation, which would be the third-largest independent power producer in the country.  More information is available at www.pplweb.com.  

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SOURCE PPL Corporation