For one week in November, a group of 29 female leaders from the U.S. energy sector met at Shell’s training and conference center in Robert, Louisiana, for a first-of-its-kind experiment.
As 10/12 Industry Report details in a feature from its latest quarterly issue, the inaugural Energy Executive Program, orchestrated by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, immersed women’s business enterprise—or WBE—attendees in a curriculum aimed at improving their managerial skills. As a result, major owners Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil hope to shake up their business models by making WBEs more competitive.
Lindsey All, senior manager of marketing, programs and business development for WBENC in Baton Rouge, says the program is based on a 15-year-old “industry agnostic” program at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, and included a mix of lectures, expert panels and field exercises.
During the five-day course, professors from the University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business led educational sessions on topics such as marketing strategy, decision making, strategic management and finance. Participants also toured the Shell facility and listened to executive panel discussions in the evenings.
“This marks our first industry-specific initiative,” All says. “We were very careful to find a university partner that had the right experience in both the oil and gas industry, as well as the necessary curriculum.”
Successful in their own right, participants in the program already earn an average of $5 million to $30 million in annual sales, and came from as far away as California, New York and Chicago. “The common thread is that they are all owners, operators or CEOs and are current suppliers of the energy industry,” All says.
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