Career Journey

Location: London

Time at Shell: 21 years

Degree: Chemical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, MBA University of Houston

“After university, I worked as a reservoir engineer and completed my MBA at night. I joined Shell because they were looking for people who combined technical and commercial skills. It was 1990 and Shell saw trading as a career rather than as a job you held on the way to the next job. I saw Shell as a global organisation with a reputation for honesty and highly professional people.

I thought it was important to do different things, grow and progress at work. I still believe that.  My career is a way of gaining growth experiences. When you get the right experience, promotions follow naturally.  At Shell Trading, you can decide to progress into management, or become a valued expert in a particular area. The best advice I got was from someone who told me to take my first European assignment   - even though it wasn’t financially advantageous for me at the time. It was exactly the right step to take for the experience I gained.

 Early on at Shell, I spent about a year at the Deer Park refinery in Economics and Scheduling so I could learn about the processes and how things actually worked. From there I went into gasoline trading. People told me that if I could survive trading gasoline in New York Harbour, I could trade anything.  At that time, gasoline trading was primarily done over the telephone. My word was my contract – and I learned a lot about human nature as well as the language of trading.

In 1993, I was transferred to International Products Trading (Far East). The deals were bigger, more creative and more interesting.  I traded all the products that came out of the Shell US refineries and sold directly to customers.  I met traders who heard about what I was doing and was transferred to London to learn about European products trading and how to trade for profit – not just in support of the refinery. 

I went back to America in 1997 to be part of a new joint venture and started trading crude oil. When the joint venture ended, I managed US crude trading. Since then I’ve worked on integration projects, dealt with IT systems and did a stint in (SILS). In 2010, I was asked to return to London to lead the transitioning of two teams that were in different parts of Shell and needed to be combined into Trading. It’s been a challenge to build a single culture, one system and a shared vision.

In my 20-year career with Shell, I’ve traded every commodity and had the variety and development that I came here for. There have been ups and downs in the business and the markets, but Shell has been fair and flexible with me. When I asked for an international posting that lasted three years instead of four so I could be in Houston with my son  during his  high school years, Shell honoured the agreement. That’s why I’ve stayed - I’ve been given what I want - opportunities, growth and the chance to build relationships with great people.”

Shell International Trading and Shipping Co.Ltd. is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.