SHOWCASING WOMEN POWER

 
Oil industry traditionally has been a male bastion. Nishi Vasudeva is set to break that proverbial glass ceiling by becoming the first woman to head an oil company in India when she takes over the reins of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd.

Nishi joins the Women POWER list

1. Karen Agustiawan had her tenure as CEO of PT Pertamina (the Indonesian state owned oil company) extended for a further five years in June this year.

In recent years most of her predecessors have not even completed a full term and it has been decades since a CEO at Pertamina has been reappointed. This is a major vote of confidence in Agustiawan’s efforts to turn Pertamina into a truly global player. Having studied engineering physics, Agustiawan kicked off her career with Mobil Oil in Indonesia and the US and only joined Pertamina in 2006 following several years at Halliburton. There is no doubting her technical ability and strategic thinking, but we feel it has been her focus on the human capital at Pertamina that will turn the company into a global player. The mission she has set for Pertamina over the next five years is ambitious saying, ‘Pertamina must be able to contribute at least 50 percent of the country’s total production’. The past five years have given Agustiawan the time to create a team strong enough to make the big decisions needed to achieve this target. With Pertamina extending its reach on a global basis the Company has a leader with experience, courage and the skill to transform.

2. Maria das Graças Silva Foster – CEO, Petrobras

Maria das Graças Silva Foster has been working at Petrobras for 31 years, where she has been serving as the director for the Gas & Energy area and as the chairwoman of Petrobras Gás S.A. (Gaspetro) since 2007. She holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from the Federal Fluminense University (UFF), a Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering, a post-graduate degree in Nuclear Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (COPPE/UFRJ), and an MBA in Economics from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV/RJ).

In addition to having held several executive positions, Maria das Graças Silva Foster has served as the CEO of Petrobras Química S.A. (Petroquisa) and as CEO and Chief Financial Officer of Petrobras Distribuidora S.A. She is the chairwoman of the Board of Transportadora Brasileira Gasoduto Bolívia-Brasil S.A (TBG), of Transportadora Associada de Gás S.A (TAG), and a member of the Boards of Petrobras Transporte S.A. (Transpetro), Petrobras Biocombustível S.A. and Braskem S.A.

In her career, she also served as the Ministry of Mines and Energy’s secretary for Oil, Natural Gas and Renewable Fuels from January 2003 to September 2005.

3. Hinda Gharbi is President of Schlumberger’s Asia Pacific operations.

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Hinda directs the operations of Schlumberger’s portfolio of service and product offerings in the Asia Pacific region.

Before assuming her current role in July 2010, Hinda was Schlumberger’s Worldwide Vice President for Health, Safety, Security, Environment, Global Citizenship and Global Regulatory Compliance based in Paris, France.

In an earlier assignment, Hinda was Managing Director of the Central East Asia market,based in Bangkok and responsible for Schlumberger operations in Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Hinda is originally from Tunisia. She joined Schlumberger in 1996 as a wireline field engineer in Nigeria after earning a Master’s Degree in Signal Processing and an Engineering Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) in France. Over the years she has held a variety of positions around the world including roles in Engineering,Personnel, Operations and Technology.

4. Margareth Øvrum – Executive vice president Technology, Projects and Drilling STATOIL
Øvrum has worked for Statoil since 1982 and has held central management positions in the company, including the position of executive vice president for health, safety and the environment and executive vice president for Technology & Projects. She was the company’s first female platform manager, on the Gullfaks field. She was senior vice president for operations for Veslefrikk and vice president of operations support for the Norwegian continental shelf.

Education: Master’s degree in engineering (sivilingeniør) from the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH) in Trondheim, specialising in technical physics. External offices: Member of the board of Atlas Copco AB and Ratos AB.

5. Sumayya Athmani is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the National Oil Corporation of Kenya.

She previously served as Deputy Managing Director of the National Oil Corporation of Kenya. Summayya Hassan-Athmani has shattered the glass ceiling effect rising to the upper rungs of the Kenyan corporate ladder. Carrying the torch for all future female leaders in the country and sitting at the peak of a major corporation she is truly an inspiration.

6. Lyn Elsenhans of US firm Sunoco
The first woman to run a major oil company, Lynn Laverty Elsenhans continues the battle to revive struggling oil refiner Sunoco. Rising crude oil costs and outages at major refineries contributed to a $101 million first-quarter loss this year that she called “not acceptable.” Elsenhans plans to focus on Sunoco’s retail and fuel logistics businesses while reducing refining operations. Since she took the helm in 2008, Sunoco has closed or sold three refineries. It added 250 retail gas stations this year. The company also spun off its profitable cokemaking business, which supplies raw materials to international steelmakers, as SunCoke Energy in July. The 55-year-old Texan earned an applied mathematics degree from Rice University–where she played on the school’s first women’s intercollegiate basketball team–in 1978 and an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1980.

7. Sara N. Ortwein – President, ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
Sara N. Ortwein was appointed president of ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company in September 2010. A native of Houston, Ms. Ortwein earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin before joining Exxon Company, U.S.A. in 1980 as a drilling engineer.

In 1997, she was named reservoir evaluation and planning manager for Exxon Ventures, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), focusing on new venture pursuit and capture in Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

8. Irene Nafuna Muloni is a Ugandan electrical engineer, businesswoman and politician. She is the Minister for Energy and Minerals in the Ugandan Cabinet, and the elected Member of Parliament for Bulambuli District Women’s Representative.

9. Diezani Alison-Madueke ‎Minister of petroleum and Resources,Federal Republic of Nigeria
Mrs Alison-Madueke was born on 6 December 1960 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Her father was Chief Frederick Abiye Agama. She studied architecture in the UK and architecture in the US. In 1992 she joined Shell and became its executive director in Nigeria in 2006. She became transport minister in July 2007, minister of mines and steel development in 2008 and minister for petroleum resources in 2010.

 

Image thanks to India Times

Thanks to Meetika Srivastava