Chevron CEO to stay past retirement age, finance chief to depart in 2024
July 23 (Reuters) — U.S. oil major Chevron Corp announced sweeping management changes on Sunday, including the retirement next year of its finance chief and extension of the mandatory retirement age for Chief Executive Officer Michael Wirth.
Chief Financial Officer Pierre Breber, 58, will retire in 2024, and will be replaced by the company’s technology chief Eimear Bonner, who will become only the second woman to be named chief financial officer in the company’s more than 140-year history.
Breber, who joined the company as a financial analyst in 1989, has been finance chief for the past three years and before that ran the company’s refining and chemicals business.
Bonner, 49, has been with Chevron for 24 years and became chief technology officer two years ago. Previously, she was general director of the Tengizchevroil in Kazakhstan, the company’s largest joint venture which produces about 700,000 barrels of oil per day.
“We’ve got a terrific leader who will come in as our next CFO, Eimear Bonner. She’s run big, complex businesses. I’m very confident that she’s going to be a great chief financial officer,” Wirth said in an interview on Sunday.
Wirth, who will turn 63 this year, has agreed to stay past the company’s mandatory retirement age of 65, Chevron said in an announcement.
“My commitments to our investors has been higher returns and lower carbon. I’ve got much more progress I want to make on both of those,” he said.
The company announced several other senior leadership changes. Balaji Krishnamurthy, currently vice president of Strategy & Sustainability, will become vice president of the Chevron Technical Center.
Molly Laegeler, currently vice president of Chevron’s San Joaquin Valley Business Unit, will become vice president of Strategy & Sustainability. And Frank Mount, currently vice president of M&A and Origination, will become vice president of Business Development.
Chevron has topped Wall Street’s earnings estimate for the second quarter, it said in a separate filing. It expects to report a $3.08 per share quarterly profit, above the $2.97 per share consensus, according to Refinitiv.
Chevron is due to report full quarterly results on Friday. (Reporting by Mrinmay Dey and Shubhendu Deshmukh in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Diane Craft)
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: nuclear
Nuclear energy provides almost 20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply. Advocates have called for an expanded role for nuclear as an emissions-free fuel source. But the economics of building new reactors are daunting. In addition, lingering safety concerns are an institutionalized part of the calculation of nuclear regulation, and highly radioactive nuclear waste remains a can that public officials have been inclined to kick down the road. The Energy Information Administration projects a sharp decline in nuclear power generation over the next decade, as new nuclear plants — two are planned — are more than offset by anticipated retirements of several operating reactors.