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Shell shock as long-timer Cook is first to go in Voser cull

Daily Mail

By SAM FLEMING
Last updated at 11:53 PM on 26th May 2009

Going: Linda Cook will leave Shell after nearly 30 years working for the firm  

Going: Linda Cook will leave Shell after nearly 30 years working for the firm

A management shakeup is looming at oil giant Royal Dutch Shell as anointed chief executive Peter Voser prepares to take the helm. 

Shell yesterday announced the sudden departure of gas & power chief Linda Cook, who has been at the company for almost three decades. Cook will step down from the board next week and then leave her post at end of June. 

The surprise decision is thought to be a prelude to wide-ranging changes at the top, as Swiss-born Voser succeeds Jeroen van der Veer as chief executive.

It comes amid a tumultuous month for Shell, which was last week rocked by the biggest City pay revolt on record. 

Cook’s departure comes on the eve of a two-day meeting of the Anglo-Dutch giant’s leading officers in Berlin. 

Voser is expected to use the summit to announce the culling of almost a third of Shell’s senior managers, according to a report on company gossip site Royaldutchshellplc.com yesterday. 

The unauthorised site, which has regularly obtained leaks from Shell insiders, said Voser will also announce the merger of Shell’s Gas & Power and Exploration & Production divisions at the meeting, which may help explain Cook’s departure. 

The firm refused to reveal the terms under which Cook is going, but by departing before 2011 she will have to forgo a ‘golden handcuffs’ present worth over £800,000. She is paid a basic salary of £825,413 year. 

The company said American-born Cook, the most senior woman in Shell’s ranks, is leaving ‘by mutual agreement after 29 years service to the company’.

Any replacement is ‘the subject of a future decision,’ Shell said. The shares added 16p to 1,647p. 

‘Peter is shaping his new team, and as you would expect for a CEO-designate, he has a say in senior management development,’ said a spokesman. ‘Her next plans are really a personal matter for her.’ 

Cook had been a possible rival to Voser for the position of chief executive. Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer in New York, said he did not want to see too wide-ranging a shakeout at the top of Shell.

‘The priority with this company is to ensure continuity,’ said Gheit. ‘You don’t want to shuffle the deck too much – you want to make an orderly transition.’ 

The position of Sir Peter Job, head of Shell’s remuneration committee, is also under question after the unprecedented pay revolt. 

Shell is also this week being forced to revisit the dark circumstances surrounding the 1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, as relatives of the Nigerian environmental activist begin a U.S. court case. Shell has denied collaborating with Nigerian authorities in the execution of Saro-Wiwa and eight others.

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