Employee Profiles

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Duncan
“The world is changing and Shell wants to help direct that change. There is often a real buzz around here and it’s an environment where one can push out boundaries, move the Shell group into new areas and perhaps shape the future.”

 

Manager, Portfolio Developments, SGSI

Duncan

Location: Europe

Joined Shell: September 1976

 

What is your current role at Shell?

In our technology solutions business based in the Hague, my role involves negotiating and implementing alliances or acquisitions and ‘portfolio’ projects such as setting up regional hubs – preparing business cases, ensuring stakeholder buy-in, and developing practical implementation plans. I have two full-time staff in the UK and I put together multidisciplinary teams that are then sent out to work on projects across the globe.

 

What do you like best about your role?

SGSI is an exciting part of Shell and is growing very quickly. There is often a real buzz around here and it’s an environment where one can push out boundaries, move the Shell group into new areas and perhaps shape the future. The world is changing and Shell wants to help direct that change and at times take the lead. For example, I have been involved in buying a stake in a Canadian-based biofuels business, to work with them in developing frontier technology for the conversion of agricultural waste biomass into an alternative fuel source. This is sustainable development in practice.

 

Tell us about your background and experience

I graduated in 1976 with a BA in Geography from Birmingham University. I joined Shell immediately after graduating as a Supply Planning Assistant with Shell UK in London for two years. I followed a varied career, including trading crude oil from London, managing the purchase and freighting of Venezuelan crude to Shell refineries from Venezuela, and also a post in Barbados, heading up a new supply/shipping/trading company serving the East Caribbean and Guianas. In this role, I expanded the business into the Central Caribbean and Central America while managing a team of 20 – and it is still growing today.
 
I then returned to London and worked mainly on acquisitions, before becoming an Area Advisor for Africa, strengthening business plans and performance as well as acting as the operating unit ‘ambassador’ in Central Offices. Three years later I was off again to Nigeria as Head of Commercial Planning and Management Information, where my role included equity crude disposal, business planning and appraisals, corporate budgeting and contracting and a lot of work with joint venture partners including the government. From Lagos I joined Showa Shell in Tokyo for four years, helping to integrate the supply/trading business with Shell’s global activities as Japan was deregulating and Korea, China and Russia became international players.

 

Just prior to my current position, I worked as Senior Strategy Consultant for Shell International Oil Products in London, providing strategic and business planning support to the OP Executive Committee in areas such as policy formulation, portfolio management and implementation.

 

What makes you stay at Shell?

Shell has provided me with 10 different and challenging jobs in 25 years – working in different countries, in different languages and with great people. Here your voice can be heard, with the opportunity to develop great friendships and networks and have a shot at many jobs. The challenges and benefits at Shell rank well with any competitor, and I enjoy working for a company that is customer focused and prepared to shape its business to satisfy their needs, now and in the future.

 

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