BP names Iain Conn to replace Grote as chemicals chief

29 October 2002 13:13  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (CNI)--BP on Tuesday named Iain Conn to succeed Byron Grote as head of its worldwide chemicals business.

Iain Conn

Conn, who has been group vice president, BP downstream, since September 2000, takes over as executive vice-president, chemicals from 21 November when Byron Grote moves up to become chief financial officer of the overall BP group.

Grote, who has been BP Chemicals chief executive for just over two years and is also on the main BP board, will replace John Buchanan when he retires.

Conn will not have a seat on the main BP board but will report to deputy chief executive Rodney Chase, who has board responsibility for the group's downstream operations, including chemicals.

In his current role, Conn has been responsible for BP’s marketing operations in Europe, for the external coherency and reputation of the BP group’s operations across Europe and the integration of Germany’s Veba Oel. In addition, Conn has been a member of the executive committee for BP’s global refining and marketing business for the last two years.

His career with BP began in commercial refining and oil trading but over the last 12 years he has spent time in various roles in exploration and production, refining and marketing and in the corporate centre. Forty-year-old Conn was born in Edinburgh, educated in Musselburgh Scotland and went on to study engineering at The Imperial College, London, gaining a bachelor of engineering first class in 1985 in chemical engineering and management.

His appointment is further evidence of the emergence at senior management level of a new, younger generation of senior executives. This deliberate policy began earlier this year with the naming of then 41-year-old John Manzoni to succeed Douglas Ford as downstream chief executive.

By: Neil Sinclair
+44 20 8652 3214

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