Royal Dutch Shell plc RDS.A recently selected Gretchen Watkins as the new President for the company’s North American operations, effective Jan 1, 2019. Watkins will replace the current President and Executive Vice President of Unconventionals. Both of them will be stepping down this year, with Watkins eventually assuming both the roles. She will supervise the sprawling U.S. operations that include wells and refineries from the Gulf of Mexico to Pacific Northwest.
On Jul 1, 2018, Watkins will replace Greg Guidry as Shell’s executive vice president of unconventionals. Eventually, the current Shell U.S. County Chair and President, Bruce Culpepper will also step down on Dec 31, 2018 and be succeeded by Watkins. Both Culpepper and Guidry have had been veterans in the company working for 37 and 36 years, respectively.
Watkins joined Maersk Oil in 2014 as the COO and was elected as the CEO of the company in 2016. She left the company after its acquisition by the supermajor TOTAL S.A. TOT. Prior to joining Maersk Oil, she served as the vice President of Houston-based Marathon Oil Corporation.
Surprisingly, only about 20% workforce in the oil industry is female, representing one of the lowest ratios among major industries. While women account for nearly 30% of the workforce in Big Oil companies including ExxonMobil and BP plc BP, new disclosures from such companies reveal major gender pay disparity, with females getting paid less by at least 20% on an average, owing to the lack of women at the upper wrung positions.
Notably, Vicki Hollub is currently the highest-ranking female executive among the major oil companies, being the President and CEO of Occidental Petroleum Corporation OXY. While the Big Oil companies have women CFO’s and a few female Presidents in some of their divisions, Hollub remains the only woman CEO among major publicly-traded oil companies. In fact, under Hollub’s leadership, Occidental emerged as the top producer in the Permian Basin, leaving behind biggies like ExxonMobil and Chevron Corporation. Notably, gender diversity in the upper echelons of the companies can boost the financial performance and innovative capacity of the firms, according to studies.
Some top female executives in major energy companies include Sara Ortwein — President of XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil and Stacy Olson — President of Chevron Appalachia, among few others.
The Anglo-Dutch oil giant is the latest supermajor to announce the appointment of a female executive, after BP named Susan Dio as the chairman and president of its vast operations in the United States on Mar 20, 2018. With Susan Dio’s election, BP will hand over the reins of responsibility of its vital U.S. operations to a woman for the first time. She will succeed John Minge who had been leading the company’s U.S. business since early 2013. Notably, both Shell and BP carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
While certain companies have gradually started making strides to move toward gender parity in the workforce, there’s still much scope for progress in the arena. With two supermajors naming a woman to a president position within the span of a week, it may prompt more energy companies to promote women in top leadership positions in coming period.
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