Wael Sawan
Wael Sawan is a Lebanese-Canadian business executive, and the CEO of Shell plc since January 2023.
Early life and education
Sawan was born in Beirut in 1974. He grew up in Dubai, and earned a master's degree in chemical engineering from McGill University in Canada. He took a career break and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.He has dual Lebanese and Canadian nationality.
Career
Sawan joined Shell in 1997 as an engineer with Petroleum Development Oman. In the mid-2000s he was country chair in Qatar, overseeing the planning and early stages of the Pearl Gas-to-Liquids project. He rose to become head of Shell's integrated gas and renewables division, and succeeded Ben van Beurden as CEO on 1 January 2023. In the summer of 2023 he announced that Shell will be dropping plans to cut oil production each year for the rest of the decade.Sawan received a pay packet of £7.9 million for 2023, having become chief executive at the start of last year on an annual salary of £1.4 million.
Under Sawan Shell has focused on share buybacks with a mission of narrowing the gap with US domiciled energy majors. Shell is currently spending $3.5 billion a quarter on buybacks. Buybacks have ran at $3 billion or more for 14 quarters in a row.