Chevron’s Company Man

John S. Watson is the chairman and CEO of energy giant Chevron Corp. He has held this position since January 1, 2010. While many companies search for high caliber executives to run their firm, Watson has been with Chevron for almost 32 years.  In fact he began his career at Chevron in 1980 and hasn’t worked for any other company.  Watson is a company man.

The advantage of having a company man run the firm is he doesn’t have to familiarize himself with the entity. This saves time and he can immediately go about instituting improvements. Another advantage of having a company man is he is a source of inspiration for others in the company that they too have a chance of being CEO. It’s good for a company’s morale.

Born in California in 1956, Watson received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of California, Davis in 1978. He then followed this up with an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1980.

After getting his master’s degree he has been with Chevron ever since. His first job at Chevron was as a financial analyst. Watson then held a number of financial and analytical positions in Chevron and Chevron U.S.A. Inc.  (CUSA). He went on to hold supervisory positions in the comptroller’s financial and profit analysis groups.

By 1996, Watson became president of Chevron Canada Limited. His rise in critical positions then happened in relatively fast successions. In 1998, he was elected a vice president of the corporation being responsible for strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions. Watson led the company’s integration effort after the Chevron-Texaco merger in 2000 and was then appointed chief financial officer.

He became the president of Chevron International Exploration and Production Company in 2005. The year 2008 saw Watson appointed as executive vice president for strategy and development.  He became the vice chairman of the board from 2009 to 2010 and then became the chairman and CEO.

The company Watson heads is truly global and huge. Chevron produced 2.673 million barrels of oil-equivalent per day in 2011. Around 75 percent of that production happened outside the U.S.  Its global refining capacity in 2011 was at 1.96 million barrels of oil per day.