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BP chair Helge Lund has announced plans to step down after a bruising tenure in which the oil major tried to pivot away from fossil fuels only to reverse course this year.
The company said on Friday that Lund, who has been chair since 2019, had notified the board of his plan to “step down in due course”. The search for a successor will be led by Amanda Blanc, the board’s senior independent director, BP added.
Lund’s departure comes as BP in February ditched a radical five-year-old strategy to reinvent itself as a green energy company. The shift followed news that activist investor Elliott Management had built a near 5 per cent stake in the company and was pushing for sweeping changes after a long a period of underperformance.
The arrival of the US hedge fund heaped pressure on Lund, who had already become the subject of growing criticism for other shareholders.
Lund was given two main responsibilities when he took over as chair: to select a new chief executive and to oversee the development of a new strategy.
His efforts on both fronts have run into trouble. Lund’s pick for chief executive, Bernard Looney, was dismissed for failing to fully disclose to the board past relationships with BP colleagues. The aggressive shift into renewables, which he oversaw with Looney, was finally abandoned in February.
Lund, a former chief executive of Norway’s Equinor and gas company BG Group, said: “Now is the right time to start the process to find my successor and enable an orderly and seamless handover.”
Blanc said: “We are starting a comprehensive search to identify chair candidates with the credibility and relevant experience to lead the board and continue driving management’s safe execution of the reset strategy.”
