Steve Holliday: National Grid CEO

Steve Holliday was born on October 26, 1956, in Exeter, United Kingdom. Steve earned a  Bachelor of Science degree in Mining from the University of Nottingham in 1978. He began his career at Exxon joining the energy company in also in 1978.

Steve spent 19 years of his early career at Exxon leaving the company in 1997. While at Exxon he gained experience in the various aspects of the oil industry.  By the time Steve was 30 years old he was the operations manager of the Fawley refinery. This was the largest refinery of Exxon outside the US. From 1990 to 1994 he was assigned to the US. In his last post at Exxon he was responsible for the company’s international gas business throughout Asia and the Far East, where he led several projects associated with the development of new markets, including China. 

Before Steve joined National Grid he was on the Board of British Borneo Oil and Gas as was responsible for the successful development of its international business in Brazil, Australia and West Africa. He also played an important role in the merger of the company with Hardy Oil & Gas in 1998. 

Steve joined National Grid in March 2001 as the Board Director responsible for the UK and Europe. In October 2002, National Grid Group plc and Lattice Group merged, after which he became responsible for the Group’s electricity and gas transmission business.  Steve was promoted from Group Director (responsible for worldwide Transmission operations) to Group Director responsible for UK Gas Distribution and Business Services. 

Steve became CEO in January 2007. He has also been a Non-Executive Director of Mark & Spencer plc since 2004. 

Steve leads a behemoth. It is an electricity and gas company that connects consumers to energy sources through its networks. The publicly traded company connects more than 7 million gas and electric consumers to energy sources in the Northeast US. In the UK it runs the gas and electricity systems. 

Managing Change At Exxon

Oil companies have the same high regard in the eyes of the public as those firms in Wall Street. To belabor the point, they’re not really well liked.  Yet ironically the same people who basically hate them have to sooner or later fill up their gas tanks. Unless of course if they’re using some sort of alternative fuel.

Since 2006 Rex W. Tillerson has been the Chairman and CEO of Exxon, one of the largest oil companies or any type of companies in the world. The position carries with it immense influence, wealth, and of course the accompanying scorn.  There is greed associated with oil companies and the “we don’t agree” with the findings of environmentalist about climate change.

Unlike his predecessor, Tillerson has acknowledged the existence of climate change. This is a very huge step in the right direction; whether it’s just maneuvering to assuage public opinion, that’s up for debate. Nevertheless even with Exxon’s size, investing $600 million (in 2009) for producing liquid transportation fuels from algae is serious money. It’s an amount that can go a long way to look for alternative fuel solutions.

Tillerson is an Exxon company man having joined the firm after graduating with a civil engineering degree from the University of Texas.  He rose through the ranks reaching the highest company position. Tillerson leads the company through a challenging time of lessening oil supply and climate change.