Lynn L.
Ranked #78 on the Fortune 500 CEO list, Sunoco's Lynn Elsenhan is one of the 15 Women on this prestigious list.
Her father spent his career in a variety of research and marketing jobs for Exxon USA, and his work kept the family moving between metropolitan New York and Houston. All the moving taught Elsenhans to be adaptable, and her exposure to various high school curricula helped balance her academic strengths.
She played on her college's first women’s intercollegiate basketball team; she was in the Marching Owl Band; she was elected to student government; she was the sports editor; and she was a student representative on the Examinations and Standings Committee. Yet somehow, she still managed to find time to excel in school and become social in a way she’d never been. “For me, it was the total experience, both inside and outside the classroom,” she said. “It was absolutely excellent for me.”
There also were glimmers of the kind of success she would later achieve. “People listened carefully when she spoke,” said Ronald Stebbings, who was master of Jones College when Elsenhans was there. “She gathered her thoughts and had something useful to say.”
After leaving Rice College, Elsenhans went straight to Harvard Business School. By the time she finished, she was more than ready to make the leap into the work world. “It sounds corny, but it really mattered to me to work for something that made a difference,” she said. “I couldn’t think of anything that had more of an impact on our society than energy.”
During her tenure at Shell, Elsenhans steadily increased her authority and responsibility. After starting her career at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Houston and then moving to the nearby Deer Park refinery, she had assignments in virtually every aspect of the company’s downstream business. In 1999, she was made president and CEO of Shell Oil Products East, based in Singapore. Since then, she has served co-currently as president of Shell Oil Company and president and CEO of Shell Oil Products U.S. and, most recently, as executive vice president of global manufacturing for Royal Dutch Shell.
It’s an enviable career trajectory made even more remarkable by the fact that it occurred in an environment that has not always been encouraging to women. “When I first started, there weren’t many women in the industry, and women’s credibility was very much questioned,” Elsenhans said. Much has changed since the early 1980s, thanks, at least in part, to Elsenhans’ success. As she rose in the corporate hierarchy, she made a concerted effort to pave the way for women who followed by mentoring them and helping establish women’s networking opportunities within Shell.
This year, however, Elsenhans hit a ceiling that was geographic rather than glass. The only place left to go within Shell was to the company’s European headquarters, and for family reasons, she and her husband, John ’74, wanted to remain in the United States. Facing retirement, even if she wasn’t ready to retire, she was asked to take the helm of Sunoco.
“It’s a really good fit for me,” Elsenhans said. “I worked for 28 years in the downstream part of the oil business — oil and chemical products — and that’s what Sunoco does.” It also was good from a personal standpoint because the company’s headquarters are in Philadelphia, which allows the Elsenhanses to remain close to John’s mother, who lives in the Northeast.
"I’ve participated in sports throughout my life, and it’s a big part of who I am. In fact, one thing I tell anyone — women, especially — who is interested in going into business and being in leadership is to play a team sport. You learn a lot about yourself and what it means to interrelate with people and to work toward a common objective at the highest levels when you play on a good sports team. " - Lynn Elsenhans
“One of the hardest lessons for me to learn as a leader was the need to give up being right. If you’re always advocating your position, you aren’t being open to the ideas of others.”
http://www.rice.edu/ricemagazine/2008/2008_Issue1/features/Elsenhans.html
Her father spent his career in a variety of research and marketing jobs for Exxon USA, and his work kept the family moving between metropolitan New York and Houston. All the moving taught Elsenhans to be adaptable, and her exposure to various high school curricula helped balance her academic strengths.
She played on her college's first women’s intercollegiate basketball team; she was in the Marching Owl Band; she was elected to student government; she was the sports editor; and she was a student representative on the Examinations and Standings Committee. Yet somehow, she still managed to find time to excel in school and become social in a way she’d never been. “For me, it was the total experience, both inside and outside the classroom,” she said. “It was absolutely excellent for me.”
There also were glimmers of the kind of success she would later achieve. “People listened carefully when she spoke,” said Ronald Stebbings, who was master of Jones College when Elsenhans was there. “She gathered her thoughts and had something useful to say.”
After leaving Rice College, Elsenhans went straight to Harvard Business School. By the time she finished, she was more than ready to make the leap into the work world. “It sounds corny, but it really mattered to me to work for something that made a difference,” she said. “I couldn’t think of anything that had more of an impact on our society than energy.”
During her tenure at Shell, Elsenhans steadily increased her authority and responsibility. After starting her career at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Houston and then moving to the nearby Deer Park refinery, she had assignments in virtually every aspect of the company’s downstream business. In 1999, she was made president and CEO of Shell Oil Products East, based in Singapore. Since then, she has served co-currently as president of Shell Oil Company and president and CEO of Shell Oil Products U.S. and, most recently, as executive vice president of global manufacturing for Royal Dutch Shell.
It’s an enviable career trajectory made even more remarkable by the fact that it occurred in an environment that has not always been encouraging to women. “When I first started, there weren’t many women in the industry, and women’s credibility was very much questioned,” Elsenhans said. Much has changed since the early 1980s, thanks, at least in part, to Elsenhans’ success. As she rose in the corporate hierarchy, she made a concerted effort to pave the way for women who followed by mentoring them and helping establish women’s networking opportunities within Shell.
This year, however, Elsenhans hit a ceiling that was geographic rather than glass. The only place left to go within Shell was to the company’s European headquarters, and for family reasons, she and her husband, John ’74, wanted to remain in the United States. Facing retirement, even if she wasn’t ready to retire, she was asked to take the helm of Sunoco.
“It’s a really good fit for me,” Elsenhans said. “I worked for 28 years in the downstream part of the oil business — oil and chemical products — and that’s what Sunoco does.” It also was good from a personal standpoint because the company’s headquarters are in Philadelphia, which allows the Elsenhanses to remain close to John’s mother, who lives in the Northeast.
"I’ve participated in sports throughout my life, and it’s a big part of who I am. In fact, one thing I tell anyone — women, especially — who is interested in going into business and being in leadership is to play a team sport. You learn a lot about yourself and what it means to interrelate with people and to work toward a common objective at the highest levels when you play on a good sports team. " - Lynn Elsenhans
“One of the hardest lessons for me to learn as a leader was the need to give up being right. If you’re always advocating your position, you aren’t being open to the ideas of others.”
http://www.rice.edu/ricemagazine/2008/2008_Issue1/features/Elsenhans.html
