July 13, 2007
Carl Mortished
Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, is planning to strip out bureaucracy and complexity from the oil group in the wake of the departure of Lord Browne of Madingley earlier this year.
The drive to streamline the head office, in St James’s Square, is part of a cultural shift in which the new chief executive is trying to play down Lord Browne’s emphasis on the environment and refocus BP on profits and operations. Symbolic of the change in mood is a decision to move the office of Peter Sutherland, BP’s chairman, from the sixth to the fifth floor, opposite Mr Hayward’s office. During tense periods in relations between Lord Browne and Mr Sutherland, company executives shuttled up and down between the two offices, relaying messages between the two men in what was widely seen as a symptom of dysfunction at the top of BP.