In the most recent All Staff Standup, did anyone catch YL admitting that he struggled with being in touch with his spiritual side? I’ve been reflecting on that quite a bit over the past week. I think he is making some choices that make sense on paper (and some of these layoffs are long overdue IMO), but he is a shell of a man… A suit and tie doing the dirty work for Wall Street. He isn’t an inspiring leader. He’s boring and does what investors want to hear. He’s not one to usher us into the next era of greatness. I believe he is doing what he thinks is right and best for the company, but as a human being he is not the right man for the job. If we want to be great again, we need someone who can lean the company out today and inspire bright minds for tomorrow. It just feels like he is following the same MBA playbook as his CEO peers. I just don’t think he has worked at the coal face long enough to really give any sort of visionary insight to propel us forward. Sure, he will lean out the company to make an acquisition, but the soul of the company is eroding quickly.
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He's Murray Auchincloss' intellectual match. They should get together. I'm going to make some AI art of the two of them getting together and getting it on.
Dead on. Returning to the fundamentals - meaning things we know we are good at - - isn’t a se-y quick fix and runs contrary to carbon goals and YLs bonus so we will just die a slow miserable death instead from doubling down on all the cr-p in your list. YL is gonna be the only one in at the right time to turn the ship. But he won’t - he only knows how to cut and pump.
The impact on shell from his disastrous term won’t be obvious until he is gone so he doesn’t care. He says stuff like “just getting started” but it’s been two years and the average CEO tenure is 4-6. I predict shell will shrink into a small player in gas over time and slide of the F500 without so much as a whimper. But hey - green goals am I right?
Maybe, but without naming names, because that will jeopardize them, is there really any SEG in Shell that you prefer over YL?
To me, they're all like oatmeal, it is all the same and there is nothing interesting about them. Maybe there is a lump in the oatmeal to make it more interesting but perhaps more annoying than beneficial.
In order not to get displaced by someone better, the LT/SEG are excluding or eliminating the competent. Thus, they collect a group who are less competent and less capable than the population they are selecting from. Their own self-interest is keeping the whole of the company down.
Does spirituality play a role? I don't know. Some of them say that they are men of faith or men of God, but you know, so was Lot, he offered up his underage daughters to So--m rather than two strangers and then eventually sired children with his own daughters. The point being that there are a lot of awful people who are spiritual.
To raise the share price we need a new ceo. Wael hasn’t got any vision for the company. He’s overpaid and not doing well.
What would raise the share price?
The rumor of a merger hasn't done that. There is nobody we could buy to help.
Layoffs aren't raising the share price, there have been layoffs for 2 years straight. Clearly that isn't helping
R&D has been decimated. There isn't anything coming from R&D.
Enough copy and paste platforms and rigs have been launched. That didn't help.
Raising the dividend by 4%, that didn't do anything. If anything share price is lower than last year's average.
Selling off carbon intense projects like steam and heavy oil hasn't helped.
We've sold enough assets to be focused and to the point there aren't enough.
We're shifted to gas more than others to reduce CO2 , green washing isn't helping.
Getting into electrons with wind and solar and even selling power to the grid flopped.
Fancy trading and selling from low tax areas has helped but loopholes tend to close.
They've tried everything for stock gains... if only we could do something to just run a solid business built for longevity... tricks & quick fixes just don't seem to work.
Or perhaps our way way overrated, unimaginative and overcompensated top brass be trimmed dramatically and take significant pay cuts. How about truly leading from the front for a change ?
I think Wael is doing what is necessary right now, but I don’t see a vision for the future. When we think of revolutionary CEOs, they are ones who can usher in a new era. I just don’t see that with Wael. I can get on board with cuts if he’s pairing it with a new vision, but the messaging is just about streamlining the company for efficiency gains.
I don't know what Shell employees expect Wael to do? He's a CEO of a publicly traded oil and gas major that has too many employees that don't directly increase revenue or reduce operating expenses. If your role is a cost to Shell, it needs to be minimized by moving to a low cost country, automation, or permanent reduction from Shell's operating expenses. Only the necessary staff should remain past 2025.