OpeOluwani Akintayo
29 April 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Saudi Arabia has appointed the first woman, Lynn Laverty Elsenhans to its board.
Elsenhans is one of the newly appointed board members, according to a statement by SA on Sunday.
She is the former chairwoman, president and chief executive officer of U.S. oil refiner Sunoco Inc. from 2008 to 2012.
Saudi Arabian Minister of Finance Mohammed al-Jadaan and Minister of Economy and Planning Mohammed al-Tuwaijri were also appointed as members of the board.
Other new members also include Peter Cella, former president & CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP, and Andrew Liveris, director of DowDuPont Inc, and the CEO of the Dow Chemical Company. Liveris’s appointment is effective as of July 1, Aramco said.
Returning board members include Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih, who is also Aramco’s chairman, and Amin Nasser, Aramco’s CEO. Minister of State Ibrahim al-Assaf and Managing Director of the government-owned Public Investment Fund (PIF) Yasir al-Rumayyan.
The outgoing board members are Majid Al-Moneef, advisor to the Saudi Royal Court; Khaled al-Sultan, Rector of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals; and Peter Woicke, former managing director of the World Bank and former vice president of the International Finance Corporation.
Elsenhans was named by Forbes as one of the world’s most powerful women in 2008.
Before her role at Sunoco, Elsenhans was the executive vice president of global manufacturing for Royal Dutch Shell where she worked for more than 28 years.
She also served on Baker Hughes’s board of directors from 2012 to July 2017 and sits on the board of GlaxoSmithKline.
Later this year or next year, Saudi government will put out around 5 percent of Aramco in an initial public offering, IPO – the world’s largest.
