(STEPPING ASIDE: 59-year-old van der Veer will retire in June 2009)
Robert Lea,
28 March 2007
Britain’s biggest company could get a female chief executive after the boss of Shell today announced plans to quit.
The £125bn oil supermajor today sounded the starting gun for a succession battle to see who will take over from chief executive Jeroen van der Veer.
Just weeks after arch-rival BP settled its own damaging succession – Tony Hayward, 49, is replacing Lord Browne – Shell said today that 59-year-old van der Veer will retire in June 2009.
Among the leading candidates to succeed the Dutchman is 48-year-old Linda Cook, Shell’s £1.5m-a-year head of gas and power and one of the four most senior executives in the company.
The appointment of American Cook, a Shell lifer, would be a mould-breaking move, not only in the male-dominated oil industry and among a FTSE 100 almost devoid of women bosses but also at Shell, which for years has been in thrall to arcane Anglo-Dutch leadership processes.
Cook joined the Shell board in 2004 after the hugely embarrassing reserves scandal that wiped out a top tier of leaders, notably chief executive Sir Phil Watts, finance director Judy Boynton and exploration and production chief Walter van der Vijver.
Once asked how she had beaten male colleagues to senior roles, mother-of-three Cook said: ‘I didn’t go out golfing with them after work – I did a good job.’
Her main rival for the post is likely to be Malcolm Brinded, the Briton who runs Shell’s E&P operations.
Analysts today, however, wondered whether Brinded’s age – he will be 56 in 2009 – will count against him. Brinded announced last month that Shell has had to abandon its future production targets, admitting that a four-million barrels a day target by 2009 is now unattainable.
Another candidate could be Peter Voser, the 48-year-old Swiss who is Shell’s chief financial officer.
There is also talk that Shell’s new chairman, the Finn Jorma Ollila, may break with custom and appoint from outside the usual lines of succession.
• Oil prices rallied today on the back of tensions between the West and Iran. The price of crude jumped $5 to $69 a barrel last night on rumours that a US warship had clashed with Iran and Britain had sent in troops to release 15 military hostages. The rumours were quickly denied, bringing oil prices back down. They rose today reflecting anxiety over the security of supplies. In London, Brent crude was up $2 a barrel to $66.60, its highest since September.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
