09/12/16
ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC
COMPANY SECRETARY CHANGE
Royal Dutch Shell plc announces the appointment of Linda Szymanski as Company Secretary with effect from January 1, 2017. Ms Szymanski succeeds Michiel Brandjes who retires at the end of the year after 36 years of service with the Shell group, of which 13 years was as General Counsel Corporate and Company Secretary.
NOTE
Linda Szymanski (right) is a US national. She was appointed General Counsel Corporate with effect from August 1, 2016 and will continue in this role upon her appointment as Company Secretary. Prior to her appointment as General Counsel Corporate, she served as General Counsel of the Upstream Americas business based in the USA and, prior to that, as the Group Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer based in the Netherlands. She has held various legal positions within Shell Oil Company, including Chemicals Legal Managing Counsel and other senior roles in the labour/employment, litigation, and commercial practice areas.
December 9, 2016
Mark Edwards
Deputy Company Secretary
Royal Dutch Shell plc
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on Dec 15th, 2016 at 20:29
The men who saved Shell
Michiel Brandjes was indeed a loyal and obedient servant both to RDS and to its non executive Chairman Jorma Ollila acting as his legal counsel. In 2005, the team investigating Malcolm Brinded reported back to the then CEO van der Veer and Beat Hess. Hess at that time was the top legal bod in RDS. Hess summarised the position on Brinded by his opinion that Brinded contributed to the shortcomings in 1999, shortcomings in his words that contributed significantly to the deaths offshore in 2003 on Brent Bravo.
Despite this Ollila and Brandjes compromised their position and stuck to the accepted script to publicly deny Brinded’s culpability despite Hess’s opinion being openly known about at Board level and beyond. It was really this decision by Brandjes and his Chairman to protect Brinded, rather than out him, that saved RDS from another reputational melt down so close behind the reserves crisis. Within the Board structure Brandjes was the custodian of business ethics, principles and compliance, it was his bread and butter, he was the policeman and the whistleblower for the Company who could, supported by the Chairman, have red carded dear Malcolm.
Brandjes cannot look back on this period with satisfaction, my gut
feeling was that he did what he felt he needed to do, but it stripped him and Ollila of any semblance of integrity. A lie to protect RDS from
crisis is still a lie. This matter after all was not just about numbers and debate on how these numbers be calculated, but to the deaths of two men who died needlessly due to management neglect highlighted and known about in 1999, but not acted upon.
Bill Campbell