First Woman Appointed To The Board Of Saudi Aramco


04/30/2018



Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world, has broken traditions in Saudi Arabia by appointing woman to its board. This appointment is important because ether ear every few women in Saudi Arabia oil industry. This announcement was made by the company which is preparing to go public, on Sunday. There were some other members who were also appointed ot the company board.
 
There are plans by the Saudi government to sell about 5 per cent of the shares of Aramco to the public through an IPO and this appointment ot its board has essentially brought in in more international experience. The IPO is expected later this year or early next year.
 
Aramco said in a statement that Saudi Minister of Economy and Planning Mohammed al-Tuwaijri and Saudi Arabian Minister of Finance Mohammed al-Jadaan were appointed as members of the board of directors.
 
Lynn Laverty Elsenhans, who is the former chairwoman, president and CEO of U.S. oil refiner Sunoco Inc. from 2008 to 2012 is the new woman member of the board.
 
Andrew Liveris, director of DowDuPont Inc, and the CEO of the Dow Chemical Company and Peter Cella, former president & CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP, were the others inducted in the board.
  
In 2008, the Forbes magazine named Elsenhans as one of the world’s most powerful women. Elsenhans had also served as the executive vice president of global manufacturing for Royal Dutch Shell before she moved to Sunoco. She was associated with Shell for more than 28 years.
 
She was also member of the board of directors of Baker Hughes from 2012 to July 2017 and is also currently a member of the board of GlaxoSmithKline.
 
Typically, there are very few women on the board of large Saudi Arabian companies. But that trend is currently undergoing a change with certain other changes for women in the society there. Typically, however, Saudi women still have to accept the male guardianship system which tends to impose a lot of restrictions on women thereby limiting their opportunities to work.
 
Sarah Al-Suhaimi was appointed last year as the first female chain of the Saudi Stock Exchange last year. She is also the first woman to be appointed as the chair of a key government financial institution in the country.
 
The Saudi Hollandi Bank, now called Alawwal Bank, was the first to select a woman to its board when it appointed Lubna Olayan as an elected member to the board in 2004. Ma’aden, the Gulf’s largest miner also appointed Lubna as one of the four new appointments by PIF to its board in 2006.
 
The Olayan family controls one of Saudi Arabia’s largest conglomerates
 
(Source:www.reuters.com)