Iain Everingham became Vice President for Shell's new Middle East South Asia (MESA) Oil Products Cluster last summer. He also became Country Chairman for Dubai and the Northern Emirates and CEO for Shell Companies in Dubai.

He talks about his formative years, his career with Shell, his current business objectives - and says that apart from his work, which he relishes, he could spend his time listening to big band jazz and travelling the golf courses of the world…

Q. Where were you born and educated?

I was born in Calcutta in 1947, just before India gained Independence. My father worked for the Inchcape Group of Companies and was involved in shipping tea and jute up and down the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Rivers. I have many fond memories of India, including Assam and Darjeeling, where we went on summer holidays to the hill stations.

My mother, younger brother and I left India in 1959 to go to Scotland, as my mother, who was a Scot, had to return to look after her ailing parents. My father joined us the following year.

I went to school locally before going to University to study Chemical Engineering. Not wanting to be a penniless student, I applied for and won two scholarships, one from the National Coal Board and the other from Caltex, the latter of which I accepted.

I then studied at Edinburgh University for four years and worked for Caltex in my summer holidays. Indeed, it was through Caltex that I was first introduced to the Middle East when I went to work at Caltex's refinery in Bahrain. So I knew the Gulf before the oil money came in and have many fond memories of Bahrain in those days.

Edinburgh was a wonderful place. I learned to ski in the Cairngorms. I became Secretary and Treasurer of the University's Archery Club. I also improved my golf and learned to play squash.

Q. What happened after University?

I got my Honours Degree in Chemical Engineering. However, by then I had decided that I did not want to become a professional Chemical Engineer. I decided that the path for me lay more in marketing, a direction which was not open to me at Caltex, so I applied for a job at Shell and was accepted.

Q. How did your early career with Shell develop?

I joined the Marketing Department of Shell in London 1969 where I underwent training. I learned a great deal travelling all over Europe visiting Shell companies, customers and installations.

My first posting was to have been to Zambia, but the Zambian Authorities rejected me because I was lacking in experience. Then in 1971, because of my knowledge of French, I was sent to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, as a Marketing and Operations Assistant. I also had two spells in Senegal.

In the summer of 1972, I was posted to the Niger as Operations Manager. I stayed for two years and met my wife to be Francoise. During my stay in West Africa, one of my great personal achievements was to have visited Timbuktu - and, yes, it really does exist!

I left Africa in 1974 and went to the INSEAD Business School just outside Paris, in Fontainbleau, where I studied for my MBA. After graduating, I married Francoise in Versailles and was posted to Montreal in Canada to sell industrial fuel oil. After a year, I moved to Toronto, where I worked in Supply and Trading, buying and selling oil products and crude oil. I held this job until the spring of 1978, when I returned to Shell UK as Rail Distribution Manager, a post which I held for two and a half years.

During this time, my wife gave birth to our first daughter, Ainsley. Then in January 1981 I was posted to Dubai.

Q. What did you think of Dubai then?

I came in as Manager of Shell Trading Middle East Limited. Dubai in those days was very different. But some things remain constant, such as the Emirates' vibrancy and its entrepreneurial spirit.

We stayed in Dubai for over three years. Aileen, our second daughter, was born at the Rashid Hospital soon after we arrived, and our third daughter, Armelle, was born just before we left.

I arrived in Dubai in the month that Shell's retailing assets were nationalised, as were those of the other International Oil Companies operating in the Emirates. It was also a time when Shell entered into the many ventures and agreements with local partners which still stand today.

I was responsible not just for supplies into Dubai and Oman, but for all of Shell's trading and distribution activities in the region, which included Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Qatar. So I got to know a lot of our distributors and business partners very well, and many of those relationships still hold true today.

Q. Where did your career take you next?

I returned to the UK in 1984 to become part of a management team charged with establishing a separate Lubricants Business in the UK, based in Manchester. This was also the time when I first became a Manchester United football supporter.

It was a challenge to build a new lubricants blending plant in Stanlow near the Shell refinery, and to get it up and running. In those days, the Unions had so much power that it was hard to introduce new working conditions, but we were successful in introducing fundamental change.

In 1988 I moved to London again to SITCO [Shell International Trading Company], later to be renamed STASCO [Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Limited]. I was responsible for negotiating and purchasing the Group's crude oil supplies from state-owned companies and Shell equity ventures. A great deal of my time was spent in the OPEC countries, so I was able to renew my connections with the Middle East.

The job involved a lot of negotiating to obtain the correct diet of crude oils for Shell's refinery system, the best pricing formulas, and the required flexibility in the supply programmes. Negotiating with Saudi Aramco during a time of great change in Saudi Arabia was interesting. Up to the mid-80's Shell and other non-American companies had not had much access to the Kingdom's oil. After Aramco underwent Saudiisation it wanted to broaden its customer portfolio. and we wanted to build bridges to get access to the most important crude oil producer in the world, and so our off- takes of crude from Saudi Arabia grew.

Then in 1991, I went to Singapore to set up Shell International Eastern Trading Company and took on the post of President. This involved merging the various Asia-Pacific trading and shipping activities of Shell into a single entity. It was a great success and the company remains successful today.

I then went back to the UK in 1994 as Vice President of the International Aviation, Marine Products and Lubricants businesses. It was during this period that SITCO became STASCO. I was charged with establishing the new and separate Aviation and Marine Products businesses, and was involved in the move to make these the global businesses which they are today.

This was part of a change in direction which the whole Group was to make later on with the formation of Shell's five core businesses of Chemicals, E&P, Oil Products, Gas and Power and Renewables. Change is a difficult process and in that job I learned a lot about managing successful change in a complex environment.

Following this I went to France as General Manager of Shell's French downstream operations, dealing with Marketing, Supply and three refineries. These were the twilight years of independent operating companies in Europe. By mid 1997, it was clear that Europe had to change, and quickly, and work was put in hand to form Shell Europe Oil Products in January 1998, at which time I became Vice President, Commercial, for Shell Europe Oil Products.

Q. What are your current business objectives as Vice President of MESA?

My appointment was part of a move to bring Shell's senior management closer to the customer. My primary objective is to leverage the strengths that Shell can bring because of its size and diversity within MESA. In other words, instead of having several small units doing the same thing, we will take advantage of our size and diversity and combine our efforts.

All of our marketing and selling activities in the Middle East are managed either through joint ventures or publicly quoted companies - which is unusual in the rest of the Shell world - and it is our responsibility to maximise the value of these companies for all the shareholders and partners.

I am also Chairman of Shell Companies in Dubai. As such, I am responsible for maintaining Shell's 'licence to operate' in Dubai, and for ensuring that the Shell team spirit and corporate governance are maintained.

Q. What do you do to relax?

I still play golf, but my golf does not seem to improve and I have a handicap of 12. That said, I recently got my first hole in one at the Emirates Golf Club.

I still ski and we try, as a family, to do this together at least once a year.I also play the piano, and if I had had real talent I would have liked to have become a pianist. I love music, particularly jazz from the big band era of the 1930s. I especially like Duke Ellington and Scott Joplin.

Q. What will be your next career move?

I still think of myself as a 'young man' and look forward to successfully developing the businesses of the MESA Cluster and to leading our people through this period of change. I also hope there will be more challenges ahead for me in Shell. Retirement is still a long way off, but I would split my time between the UK and France, and could spend my days travelling the golf courses of the world.