CEO North America > CEO Interviews > Nicole A. Kivisto, President and CEO of MDU Resources, sits down with CEO North America Magazine to share the company’s CORE strategy
Nicole A. Kivisto, President and CEO of MDU Resources, sits down with CEO North America Magazine to share the company’s CORE strategy
For more than a century, MDU Resources has remained committed to delivering safe and reliable energy. They continue that tradition today while embracing forward-thinking strategies to meet evolving energy needs. Nicole A. Kivisto, the company’s President and CEO, sits down with CEO North America Magazine to share the company’s CORE strategy.
MDU Resources has made great strides since it was established a century ago, providing energy to towns along the Montana-North Dakota border in 1924.
Early in its history, the company recognized the advantage of diversifying its services and expanded its business by capitalizing on its well-known expertise.
By 2025, MDU Resources has grown its operations and customer base to eight states, with a team of over 2,200 employees across the Pacific Northwest and Midwest.
Today, MDU Resources supplies natural gas distribution and electric utility services to more than 1.2 million customers and operates a more than 3,800-mile natural gas pipeline network and storage system.
Aligning Leadership with Vision From its headquarters in Bismarck, North Dakota, Nicole A. Kivisto oversees the company’s wide range of utilities, including its electric utility, natural gas distribution utilities, and its pipeline business.
She joins a diverse group of executives at MDU Resources, a company proudly designated as a “3+” company by 50/50 Women on Boards for having at least three women on its board of directors. Kivisto has served as CEO of MDU Resources for under two years; however, she’s not new to the company.
“We remain confident in our ability to execute on our long-term growth strategy. We believe our operational focus and financial discipline continue to position us well for delivering safe and reliable energy, customer value and strong stockholder returns.”
Leading the CORE Strategy When she first took on the role of CEO, Kivisto recognized some opportunities that stemmed from her previous position as CEO of MDU Resources’ utility group.
At that time, the company had four primary business units. “As the president and CEO of the utilities group, I sat on our management policy committee for the entire corporation. So, I was very familiar with what the corporation was doing strategically.”
The new CEO understood the importance of maintaining the progress of MDU Resources’ strategic shift, particularly in transforming the company into a pure-play regulated energy delivery business.
“Before I took on the role, we had spun off our construction materials company, Knife River, into a standalone publicly traded company. When I stepped into the position, what remained was the spin-off of our construction services company, which was rebranded to Everus.”
MDU Resources successfully completed the spinoff of its construction group subsidiary, Everus Construction Group, in October 2024. Everus is now an independent, public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “ECG.”
Spinning off the two construction divisions highlighted MDU Resources’ new goal of refocusing the business on its CORE and founding principles.
“MDU Resources is a trusted partner. Together we’re providing critical infrastructure, streamlining operations and accelerating projects that improve service for our customers and communities. Our collaboration reinforces our commitment to safety and sustainability while delivering reliable energy where and when it’s needed most.”
Camilo Amezquita, Vice President for Williams
Efficient to the CORE In 2025, Kivisto is more focused than ever on MDU Resources’ CORE strategy.
CORE is the CEO’s playbook for driving sustainable growth and value for all stakeholders. The strategy was born out of MDU Resources’ four strategic imperatives: Customers and Communities, Operational Excellence, Returns-Focused, and Employee-Driven.
These imperatives align with the company’s three responsible business pillars: People, Planet, and Principles.
“We said, let’s come up with a little neat acronym that helps people easily remember when we say we’re going back to our CORE, what the most important things are to us.”
Under Kivisto, MDU Resources also utilizes a “boots on the ground” approach to operational improvement. “We need to have a continuous improvement culture, and we’ve got to be constantly thinking about ways that we can do better.”
This approach was one of the driving forces behind MDU Resources successfully implementing its strategic shift in utility operations across eight states. “We made a key decision several years ago to operate these four brands as a single utility.”
“Instead of having four separate departments managing a safety management program, we decided to centralize it into one. This way, we could operate these companies in a more unified manner, aiming to drive consistency across the four brands. So, we consolidated our operating policies and procedures.”
“Our longstanding partnership with Montana Dakota Utilities (MDU) has been built on mutual commitment to safety, quality, and productivity. Through our collaborative efforts in constructing their projects, we’ve consistently aligned with both MDU’s and Michels’ goals—resulting in continued growth across their service areas.”
Tom Osborn, Vice President, Michels
“A 21-year partnership doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built through consistency, trust, and performance. TMV has earned its reputation by delivering value, communicating openly, and showing up with quality every time. Our long-standing collaboration with MDU Resource Group reflects the kind of trusted, results-focused relationships we look to build with every customer.”
Kristen McKay, Executive Vice President, Origination, North America, Tenaska Marketing Ventures
“We restructured the executive team so that you’re not just responsible for a brand, you’re responsible for all eight states.”
A Solid Balance Sheet MDU Resources is the oldest publicly traded company headquartered in North Dakota, having been listed on the NYSE since 1948. The company also proudly claims a continuous 87-year record of dividend payments.
MDU Resources has been on an upward trajectory. In its latest annual report, the company reported an impressive revenue of $1.8 billion and a 1.4% increase in its customer base.
In August 2025, MDU Resources raised its quarterly dividend on common stock by 7.7%. The board also reaffirmed its focus on maintaining a long-term dividend payout ratio of 60% to 70% of earnings.
Moving forward, “In the next five years, what we’re telling investors is we’ve got about $3.1 billion of capital to deploy.” She explains, the good news for investors doesn’t stop there. “In addition, some of the opportunities we’re seeing in our pipeline are outside of that five-year investment. We don’t have it in that capital plan today.”
Going for Growth After a hundred years of operation, MDU Resources can now deliver 2.9 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas through its regulated pipeline network spanning the Northern Plains.
Looking ahead to the rest of fiscal 2025 and beyond, MDU Resources is well-positioned to carry out its long-term strategy, and its CEO recognizes strong growth opportunities that are shaping the company’s outlook.
One key opportunity Kivisto is pursuing is a sustainable growth plan in both MDU Resources’ pipeline and utility sectors. In the company’s most recent Q2 earnings report, the utilities segment demonstrated solid expansion, with revenues totaling $14.1 million.
“As a utility industry, something that’s constantly front and center for us is serving our growing customer base. And so certainly on the utility side, we are putting investment to work as we watch our communities grow.”
“We decided that it was in our best interests to simplify our story for investors, essentially spinning off these construction companies and creating a pure-play regulated energy delivery business. I am very proud of the team’s execution and the shareholder value created.”
“One of the fundamental things we did at MDU Resources was to help our employees understand that we’re going back to our CORE.”
The company also intends to invest approximately $3.1B of capital investment between 2025 and 2029 to expand and modernize its existing infrastructure. “When you’re a 100-year-old company, you’ve got a lot of stuff that probably needs to be upgraded and replaced.”
Kivisto assures us that throughout its decades of operations, MDU Resources has never strayed far from its roots. “One of the fundamental themes that our founder actually came up with is when communities thrive, we thrive, and we’re still finding that to be true today.”
Something unique about MDU Resources compared to others, according to its CEO, is that it has vertically integrated both its electric and gas divisions, and its pipeline continues to offer opportunities. “We’re only getting started in terms of the growth that we have in front of us. And, so far, it has been a fun journey surrounded by great people helping us get this all done.”
What makes MDU Resources different? Kivisto tells CEO North America, “I would start with our diversification.” “We’ve got an eight-state footprint that offers, in my opinion, diversification not only in local economies and weather patterns that influence results, but also in the fact that when we pursue regulatory recovery, no single outcome has an outsized impact on the overall company.”
“Secondly,” she says, “I like our growth story. When I look at our ability to increase EPS over the long term, we are forecasting 6-8% growth on a compound annual basis, and our track record of executing on that is clear. So, when you consider our ability over the last 5 years to deliver on what we’re saying we’re going to deliver in the future, we have done that.”
“So, I think it’s a believable story, especially when we consider our ability to grow over the long term. And I do think that growth rate sets us apart from others.”
According to Kivisto, the Bakken Shale play in North Dakota, where the company operates and builds natural gas pipelines through its WBI Energy subsidiary, also presents significant opportunities driven by industry trends such as the low cost of gas. “I also like MDU Resources’ strategic location in terms of the Bakken, so right now I’m specifically focused on our pipeline.”
MDU Resources’ CEO also strongly believes in the company’s vertical integration strategy, which can effectively deliver gas-fired generation opportunities and industrial loads off its pipeline.
Finally, what distinguishes MDU Resources from its competitors is its solid balance sheet. “It’s one thing to talk about how you can deliver on growth, but if you don’t have the starting point of a good balance sheet, it makes it difficult to pursue growth. And we are well suited even following these spends in terms of our balance sheet and financial strength.”
“MDU Resources Group has described Cohesive as ‘another part of our family’ – a sentiment that we agree with whole-heartedly. We feel honored to work with an organization of this caliber and to have helped it embed a fully digital approach in how it manages and maintains critical assets. Thank you, MDU, for putting your trust in us and for referencing the ‘great work’ we have done for you.
Colin Ellam, Vice President, Cohesive
Industry Recognition As MDU Resources expands its operations, it continues to prioritize high-quality service for its customers and is widely recognized for its fairness in the industry.
In the J.D. Power 2024 Gas Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study, MDU Resources’ subsidiaries, Intermountain Gas Co. and Cascade Natural Gas Corp. achieved the top two scores among midsize natural gas utilities in the West Region across six factors: safety and reliability, billing and payment, price, corporate citizenship, communications, and customer care.
Throughout its decades of operations, MDU Resources has also built a lasting reputation of philanthropy. To mark its 100th anniversary, the MDU Resources Foundation donated $100,000 to charities in the company’s operating communities, bringing the foundation’s total grants for the year to $1.8 million.
Leading the Next Generation For over a century, MDU Resources has made meaningful progress on behalf of its stakeholders and under Kivisto, is heading into the future with enormous opportunities.
MDU Resources’ key message from its CEO emphasizes the company’s capacity to redefine itself. “We have just come through this strategic transformation. When we redefined ourselves, we established a new vision, mission, and values.”
She proudly states, “Whenever I get a chance to talk about our success, I highlight that it takes all of us.” “We’re more than 2,200 strong here. It takes all of us to move the organization forward. I’m very proud of what we’ve done, but also very excited about what our future holds as well.”
Nicole leads with a clear vision for applying advanced technology to manage MDU’s diverse operations effectively. It is remarkable how her leadership ensures consistency, innovation, and reliability across regions, making MDU a trusted and collaborative partner for us and all stakeholders.
Francois Rongere, Vice President, Natural Gas Industry, Picarro Inc.
