Chevron is reshuffling senior leadership over strategy, trading, and business development as the company leans harder on execution and integration while oil markets remain choppy.
In a Thursday report, Reuters said Patricia Leigh, Chevron’s president of supply and trading, will retire after 35 years with the company. Molly Laegeler, currently chief strategy officer, will succeed Leigh and take responsibility for supply, logistics, and trading effective March 1. Kevin Lyon, who has been overseeing Chevron’s integration work tied to Hess, will become chief strategy officer.
Chevron is also changing leadership on the dealmaking side. Frank Mount, president of corporate business development, will retire after 33 years, Reuters reported. Jake Spiering will succeed Mount effective Aug. 1. Jeanine Wai will take over Spiering’s investor relations role starting April 1.
In its own announcement, Chevron said the moves are aimed at tighter coordination across key decision lines. “These leadership changes are intended to strengthen execution and improve coordination across strategy, trading and investment decisions,” the company said in a statement.
The trading change lands as Chevron’s upstream footprint stays exposed to policy risk and heavy-crude dynamics, including Venezuela, where it has been operating under U.S. authorizations and has stressed that activity is constrained. Chevron recently reported quarterly results that beat analyst expectations, with management again pointing to capital discipline and cash returns even as it evaluates how far it can go in Venezuela under U.S. approvals.
That focus has intensified as President Donald Trump’s administration enforces sanctions more aggressively, pushing major oil companies to weigh strict compliance against access to cheaper, geopolitically constrained crude.
As global crude flows become more fragmented and price spreads widen, especially for heavy and medium grades, Chevron relies on its trading desk to capture those gaps. The company still operates in sanctioned markets through older licenses and positions, including Venezuela, where activity is capped and focused on recovering debt, not expanding production. Trading is how Chevron works around those constraints while keeping margins intact.
The changes also tie directly to Chevron’s project pipeline. Business development will be central as the company moves major projects forward in the Gulf of Mexico and Kazakhstan and works through assets added or reshaped by recent portfolio decisions. Strategy leadership will focus on where capital goes, as Chevron continues to weigh long-dated projects against shareholder returns.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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