Bernard Looney, after four years talking about orderly transitions, has made a disorderly transition out of BP. Not being fully transparent with the board of directors – whether about past personal relationships with colleagues or anything else – usually has that outcome for a chief executive. On the company’s version of events, this was clearly a resigning matter.
The immediate question is succession. BP is the type of company that likes to promote from within and, with the 53-year-old Looney at the helm, the board probably thought it had a few more years to observe the internal jostling for position.
