Christian S. Schade has joined NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG) today as Executive Vice President and will assume the position of Chief Financial Officer in early May.

Most recently, Schade, was Senior Vice President Administration and Chief Financial Officer at Medarex (Nasdaq: MEDX), a Princeton-based biopharmaceutical company acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. for $2.4 billion in September 2009. During his tenure, Schade helped Medarex grow to become a leading biopharmaceutical development company raising capital through a series of public capital market and asset monetization transactions. Schade played a lead role in negotiations for the sale of Medarex to Bristol-Myers Squibb and, until recently, helped lead the merger-integration process of the research, development and administrative functions.

“Chris has a proven record of creating value at highly entrepreneurial and fast-growing companies, which will be highly valuable as NRG pursues our no- and low-carbon power-generation opportunities,” said David Crane, NRG Chief Executive Officer. “At Medarex, Chris demonstrated the intellectual versatility, teambuilding ability and operational skill-set necessary to overcome challenges and get the job done. Chris, leading our outstanding finance group, will play an instrumental role in formulating capital allocation strategies and driving performance across our traditional generation assets and growth platforms.”

Prior to Bristol-Myers Squibb, Schade was a Managing Director in the Debt Capital Markets Group at Merrill Lynch & Co., where, in London, he oversaw public and private capital-markets transactions for corporate clients throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Previously he served in various corporate finance and capital market positions in New York and London for both Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan.

Gerald Luterman, in addition to continuing his Board of Director responsibilities on the Finance Committee, served as NRG’s interim CFO since November 2009. He will remain as Chief Financial Officer through the release of first-quarter earnings and 10-Q filing, expected in early May 2010, and then expects to resume his role as an independent director and member of the NRG Board of Directors’ Audit Committee.

“Gerry deserves our great praise and appreciation for providing his deep financial expertise and leadership over the past few months as we completed an outstanding year of financial performance,’’ Crane said. “Chris and I look forward to working closely with Gerry as he returns to his full Board responsibilities.’’

Schade graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History, and received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. An active member of the community, he currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart and coaches boys youth lacrosse. Schade also serves on the Board of Directors at Integra Life Sciences (Nasdaq: IART).

About NRG

NRG Energy, Inc., a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 Company, owns and operates one of the country’s largest and most diverse power generation portfolios. Headquartered in Princeton, NJ, the Company’s power plants provide more than 24,000 megawatts of generation capacity—enough to supply more than 20 million homes. NRG’s retail business, Reliant Energy, serves more than 1.6 million residential, business, commercial and industrial customers in Texas. A past recipient of the energy industry’s highest honors—Platts Industry Leadership and Energy Company of the Year awards, NRG is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a group of business and environmental organizations calling for mandatory legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More information is available at www.nrgenergy.com.