Woodside’s female CEO gets less than predecessor
• Details of Meg O’Neill’s package buried in a flurry of news on Tuesday
Woodside Petroleum is paying new CEO Meg O’Neill about 25% less than her predecessor, even as she embarks on sealing a deal to double the size of the Australian company to turn it into a top 10 independent oil and gas producer.
Details of O’Neill’s package were buried in a flurry of news on Tuesday, when her appointment as permanent CEO was confirmed and she announced a A$40bn merger with the oil and gas arm of BHP Group.
O’Neill, an American, had been acting CEO since April, taking over the role from Peter Coleman, who retired after a decade at the top of the Perthbased company.
Announcing her appointment, Woodside had said more than 300 internal and external candidates were considered.
“Meg’s impeccable credentials and proven leadership capabilities, exemplified in recent months, set her apart as the board’s top candidate for the CEO position,” Woodside chairman Richard Goyder said.
O’Neill, plucked from ExxonMobil in 2018 by Coleman, will be paid a fixed base salary of A$2.2m plus a bonus with a target value of A$4.4m. The firm has also speeded up the vesting of restricted shares she was awarded in her previous role.
That compares with Coleman’s total pay of A$8.7m in 2020, a year when oil prices and earnings collapsed.
The CEO of Woodside’s smaller rival Santos, Kevin Gallagher, was paid A$8.1m last year and snared a A$6m bonus this year to keep him for another five years.
The details of O’Neill’s pay package, attached at the bottom of a statement announcing her appointment, were first reported by Energy News Bulletin.
Woodside and O’Neill would not comment on the pay gap.
To be sure, new CEOs are typically paid less than their experienced predecessors. However, in 2012, Coleman’s first full-year at the company, he was paid A$7.6m.
Two analysts who follow the company said they had not analysed O’Neill’s pay, but said she was a good pick. She has a master’s degree in ocean systems management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has worked for 27 years in the oil and gas industry.
“She’s established strong credibility and is well regarded within Woodside, and she has one of the strongest operational backgrounds compared to any other”energy Credit sector Suisse CEO analyst in Australia, Saul Kavonic said.
The market is taking some time to get used to “the more subdued nature of Woodside’s external market engagement under Meg”, an engineer by background, Kavonic said. “She’s less focused on the hype and more on the delivery.”