Women want a shot at climbing the ladder

Flexible working hours and maternity leave are all well and good, but what women really want is a fair chance to climb the corporate ladder.

So says Vicki Hollub, and she would know: in her 35-year career she moved up the ranks at Occidental Petroleum to become big oil’s top woman.

“Women I work with and talk with in the industry really feel it’s the assurance they’re going to be given the opportunities and the chance to perform,” says Hollub.

“The industry has to prove that that’s a reality everywhere.”

Hollub, a mineral engineer, worked in Russia, Venezuela and the US for Occidental before becoming chief executive in 2016.

Under Hollub, Occidental has come up against majors like Exxon Mobil and Chevron to defend its leadership as the No 1 producer in the United States’ Permian Basin, one of the world’s biggest and most profitable oilfields. A path like hers is still rare in the industry, and she is the only woman who has risen this high among the 18 oil producers worth more than US$50 billion.

Only about 20 per cent of the industry’s workforce are female, a smaller share than all other sectors except construction, according to a study by Boston Consulting and the World Petroleum Council. The upshot is not only that women lose out on a promising career, but that companies don’t hire the best talent and suffer from having a smaller diversity of perspectives, the study said.

Once companies hire women, flexible working is important to retain them, says Hollub, who took two years off for family reasons.

“People do need to go and have their families,” she says. “They need to fulfil that part of their life. You need a way to integrate them back into the workforce while still understanding that they have to take care of their family.”

Historically, the oil industry’s need for engineers and geologists to work in remote locations may have stymied women’s chances but this is no longer an excuse, Hollub says.

As other companies laid off employees after the 2014 oil-price crash, Occidental sent younger workers out to rigs to gain experience so that later on in their careers they could work remotely or from home.

“They can sit in the office or at home and do a better job because of the exposure we put them through early,” she says.