Blanc, also a CEO of British insurer Aviva, oversaw Manifold’s appointment at BP in October 2025. However, multiple figures ⁠from London’s financial centre, including large investors in the oil giant, told the Financial Times that this time around, Blanc would lack the support from shareholders to make a second appointment to the post.

Manifold’s inglorious exit has added another chapter in BP’s leadership instability. In 2023, former CEO Bernard Looney was fired ⁠after lying to the board about his personal relationships with colleagues. His successor, Murray Auchincloss, left abruptly in December 2025.

While former Woodside CEO Meg O’Neill joined the British energy major immediately, she also became the venture’s fifth CEO since 2020. Although her role has been to accelerate the company’s shift away from renewable energy to refocus on oil and gas, right now what BP needs is stability at the top, along with clear policy direction.

BP’s gas and low-carbon business chief William Lin will leave the organisation as well. However, as per the reports, this has to do with O’Neill’s reorganisation efforts that will turn the business into two main units of downstream and upstream, bundling oil and gas production, with the goal of making BP simpler and more valuable.

BP vs Manifold
The immediate reason behind Manifold’s removal was his alleged act of aggression with different colleagues across the BP. The board had reportedly received enough information following a whistleblower report to ascertain that there was a pattern of “unacceptable behaviour” from the chair.

Manifold, while interacting with Reuters, disputed the accusations and commented, “I was removed without warning and without explanation. I dispute entirely the characterisation of my conduct, and I will not allow a false narrative to go unchallenged.”

It is also worth remembering that Manifold had the backing of activist hedge fund Elliott, which has built up a stake of around 5% in BP. The chair’s role at BP was Manifold’s first-ever leadership job in the energy industry. Before joining the British giant, he was the chief at building materials producer CRH, where he helped the company to reshape its operational portfolio. He also helped the business to move its primary listing from Ireland to the United States, a move that helped CRH’s share prices to go up.

However, Manifold’s journey as BP’s chair was anything but smooth. Under his watch, BP’s board shrank. Shell finance chief Simon Henry, who only joined the company in September 2025, was among those quitting at short notice. The April 2026 annual general meeting (AGM) saw the board failing to get two of its resolutions accepted by shareholders, and Manifold’s appointment as chair got less support than typical.

Despite the board putting up a united show back then, proxy adviser Glass Lewis held Manifold accountable for BP’s decision to exclude a resolution filed by climate activist group Follow This and thus recommended a vote against him. His appointment, however, was confirmed by around 82% of votes, well below the typical near 100% tally for directors.

Another infamous chapter was Manifold’s alleged clash with Henry. As per the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the issue was the fellow director’s handling of sensitive talks related to a potential deal. Manifold privately accused Henry of overstepping his authority and excluding other directors from communications, while Henry denied any mishandling of talks, arguing that Manifold ‌was ⁠mischaracterising conversations.

Hitting back to the WSJ, Manifold’s spokesperson said, “Assertions that he accused Mr Henry of overstepping his authority or excluding fellow board members ⁠from communications are false.”

Manifold, post his removal as the BP chair, said not everyone at the oil major shared his priorities to cut costs and boost efficiency, while acknowledging being too pushy for the change. However, he again denied committing any misconduct.

“Is it possible that in my determination to drive change on costs, performance, the balance sheet and shareholder communications, I pushed hard and challenged people directly? Yes, it is. What I do not accept is that lies can be told about me, nor that anyone should be allowed to hide behind anonymity when ⁠commenting on my time at BP,” he remarked.

Quoting BP’s internal sources, a Reuters report claimed that Manifold met with activist shareholder Elliott Management during his tenure without telling fellow board members directly. While these ⁠interactions were not technically a breach of any specific rule, they created an impression of him acting unilaterally, reportedly displeasing the board.

While Elliott wanted BP to cut costs, shift focus and spending from renewable projects to oil and gas and simplify its organisational structure, Manifold, on the other hand, ⁠wanted to accelerate the revamp. Most of the organisational changes got implemented in recent months.

Does BP have the most volatile boardroom?
As per Lindsey Stewart, director of institutional investor content at Morningstar, “At this point it’s fair to say BP has the most volatile boardroom of the oil supermajors. With a resurgent share price so far this year, BP should be taking credit for the rewards of its strategic reset. Instead, the company is on its third CEO and now its third chairman in under three years. It’s clear that getting a grip on corporate governance and strategy at the company must be a priority of the interim chair and his eventual successor.”

Legendary investment manager Neil Woodford, on the other hand, minced no words for BP. As per him, Manifold is the third chairman the company has been through in three years, and this sort of makes BP look “ungovernable”.

“Shareholders should look away from the churn at the top and instead at who is doing the churning,” Woodford remarked in a LinkedIn post, as he continued, “people should focus on the decisions made by non-executive directors rather than the chairman himself.”

“Most of the non-executive directors who pushed Manifold out have sat on that board throughout the entire period. The same people who have hired and fired chairmen and chief executives in quick succession remain comfortably in place. And the man they have just removed was the architect of BP’s turnaround strategy and the person who recruited the new chief executive in the first place. The board kept itself and discarded the one figure actually trying to change the business,” he concluded.

The post Business leader of the Week: Albert Manifold’s ouster and BP’s never-ending boardroom instability appeared first on International Finance.

Murray Auchincloss, the former head of BP’s finance department, assumed the CEO position with the commitment to concentrate on creating value for shareholders, following the unexpected resignation of his predecessor, Bernard Looney, in January 2024.

The choice to scale back BP’s environmental goals has increased worries that Looney’s strategy to wean the business off of fossil fuels, promising to “become a net zero company by 2050 or sooner,” may soon come to an abrupt halt.

BP has been under pressure from shareholders regarding its green targets because oil and gas profits have increased significantly since Russia invaded Ukraine, and some renewable projects have proven more expensive than anticipated.

“Murray Auchincloss had a chance to build on his predecessor’s legacy and become part of the solution to the climate crisis, rather than its harbinger. Instead, BP is following other fossil fuel majors by abandoning renewables and doubling down on oil and gas in the hopes of a quick buck,” Areeba Hamid, its joint executive director said.

According to reports, Murray Auchincloss is considering investing in and potentially acquiring new gas and oil assets to bolster BP’s current operations, especially in the Texas shale basins that it purchased from the Anglo-Australian miner BHP and the Gulf of Mexico.

Who Is Murray Auchincloss?

Murray Michael Auchincloss is a Canadian business executive. He has held senior roles in finance and management of BP, be it tax, business development, mergers and acquisitions and performance management. Murray was chief of staff to the BP CEO from 2010 to 2013. Most recently he has been BP’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and a member of the board of directors.

As CFO, Murray led a major modernisation drive in BP finance, including building the financial frame on which the energy giant’s strategy rests. Murray is also a member of the board of directors for Aker BP ASA, Norway. As the company’s boss, he has been given the responsibility of transitioning BP from an “International Oil Company” to an “Integrated Energy Company.”

Murray has improved BP’s financial teams significantly, kept operational expenses under control, and kept up his consistent practice of providing investors and markets with clear financial disclosures.

Why Is BP Appeasing Its Investors?

Murray Auchincloss has taken up the CEO’s role after the departure of his predecessor, Bernard Looney, with a promise to focus on delivering value for shareholders.

His decision to slow BP’s green ambitions has stoked concerns that Looney’s plan to move the company away from fossil fuels may soon be derailed. Why are the shareholders unhappy with the venture’s energy goals? Some of the renewable projects have proved more costly than expected, and profits from oil and gas have soared after the beginning of the Ukraine war.

BP set out plans earlier in 2024 to cut oil and gas production by just 25% between 2019 and 2030, well short of its previous target of a 40% reduction over the same timeframe. Murray Auchincloss is reportedly looking at investing in and possibly acquiring new oil and gas assets to strengthen BP’s existing operations, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and the shale basins acquired from the Anglo-Australian miner BHP in Texas. So the motive is clear: to strengthen the existing non-renewable businesses as of now and consolidate the profit flow.

And it’s not BP alone following the above route. In June 2024, Shell set out its own plans to scale back its green growth ambitions, reducing the number of staff working on low-carbon solutions by about 200 roles while shifting the focus towards high-profit oil projects and expanding its gas business.

And it’s not that BP is completely ignoring its climate goals. Since 2020, the energy giant has built up a sizable portfolio of offshore wind projects capable of generating 9.5 gigawatts of energy in total in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States that are yet to be developed. It wants to focus on these assets, as per the reports, rather than bidding for new renewable projects. Apart from this, it has reassigned dozens of people tasked with finding new renewables opportunities to its offshore wind projects in Britain and Germany, apart from undertaking further job cuts in the renewables, except for frontline roles.

BP’s shares too have underperformed rivals in recent months, prompting speculation about the company being a takeover target. Looney’s “net zero” plan was all about cutting the company’s oil production by 2030, while others were still planning to increase their fossil fuel production. BP is also investing in biofuels and low-carbon businesses that can generate short-term returns.

The company recently agreed to a USD 1.4 billion (1.1 billion euro) deal to take full ownership of its Brazilian sugar and ethanol joint venture, but when it comes to starting new biofuel projects from scratch, it is scaling back things.

BP explained the above process in the following words, “As Murray Auchincloss said in February, BP’s destination, transforming from international oil company to integrated energy company – is unchanged, but we are going to deliver as a simpler, more focused and higher-value company.”

“We set out six priorities that underpin this, including driving greater focus into the business, on to activities that create the most value, as well as delivering both the next wave of efficiencies and BP’s growth projects,” it stated further.

Murray Auchincloss has pledged a “more pragmatic” approach to BP’s green targets since taking up the CEO role. The venture will cut USD 2 billion in costs by the 2026 end, after reporting lower-than-expected profits for the first quarter of 2024. He is now planning to make the savings by choosing fewer new projects to invest in over the coming years.

As per the analysts, in his pursuit of making BP “a net zero company by 2050 or sooner,” Looney ended up letting the company overbid for renewable energy assets (assets which are not expected to generate revenue for years) over and above even established industry players.

For example, BP spent USD 2.5 billion on offshore renewables, hydrogen, electric vehicle (EV) charging and biofuels, out of a total capital expenditure of USD 16 billion in 2023-24. As per the reports, the company’s stance was deemed to be out of sync with what its shareholders wanted: a focus on its core oil and gas business along with a slightly tempered approach to the energy transition. The investor dissatisfaction further weighed upon BP’s share price, making it lag against its American peers in terms of valuation.

Murray Auchincloss is now conducting a course correction for the company, by making the latter redouble its operational efforts on its existing portfolio, rather than bidding for new renewable projects. At the same point in time, its activities on the green energy front will follow a tapered-down approach for the time being.

“Analysts believe the above measures will help the company’s shareholders to breathe a sigh of relief in the hope of a clawback of the over 12% decline in BP’s share price over the past five years. More so, given that Shell has seen its value appreciate by 10% over the corresponding time frame,” Reuters reported further.

Image Credit: British Petroleum Company

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