How Do You Solve a Problem Like Tony Hayward?

Posted on Jul 26, 2010

Wikimedia Commons / World Economic Forum

Not long for his position? BP CEO Tony Hayward may be on his way out.

It’s kind of amazing that BP’s beleaguered CEO, Tony Hayward, is still in play at this point, but he may not last much longer, as the oil company’s board members were slated to debate his fate Monday evening.

MarketWatch:

The statement follows media reports this weekend that Hayward has agreed to step down and will be replaced by Robert Dudley, the American heading the company’s cleanup efforts in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

“BP notes the speculation over the weekend regarding potential changes to management and the charge for the costs of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP confirms that no final decision has been made on these matters,” the firm said.

[...] On Monday, the Journal as well as several other publications reported that veteran insider Dudley would take the helm this fall. Hayward would stay on the board until the end of the year and Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg would keep his job.

One of the reasons that Hayward would stay into the fall is that the company would like to complete the drilling of its relief well—the only permanent solution to the spill—first, so as not to saddle a new CEO with the stigma associated with the leak.

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