| Tony Hayward is the Chief Executive Officer of oil and gas company BP since 2007. He joined BP in 1982 as a geologist, engaged in exploration and production of oil and gas in Great Britain, France, China, Indonesia, Papua - New Guinea, Colombia and Venezuela. Tony Hayward worked in other capacities such as treasurer of the BP group (2000-2002) and Vice President and Chief Executive Officer for geological exploration and production (2002-2007). In 2008, he participated in negotiations in finding a resolution to the conflict between Russian and British shareholders of the multinational corporation BP. In October 2010, Tony Hayward will leave the post of Chief Executive Officer at BP.
Anthony Bryan Hayward was born on May 21, 1957 in Great Britain. He is the eldest child in a big family, attended school near Windsor and took great interest in sports. Hayward joined Ashton University in Birmingham due to its football team but during his education in university, he took great interest in geology and successfully graduated from the geological faculty in 1979. In 1982, he received a PhD in geological sciences from the University of Edinburgh. At that time, geologists were in great demand due to high oil prices and he received offer letters from several oil companies in the same year. Hayward wanted to join Mobil, but having received an offer from David Jenkins, chief geologist of British Petroleum, Hayward joined the BP Group.
Since 1982, Hayward worked as a geologist on oil platforms in the British sector of the North Sea. Then he worked in the exploration of oil and gas deposits in local departments of geological exploration for BP in France and China (in the river basin Xi Jiang), Indonesia, Great Britain and Papua - New Guinea. In 1988, after the merging of BP and Britoil, Hayward was given the responsibility to assess the reserves and work out a strategy for development of the oil deposits in the North Sea.
In 1990 during a leadership conference in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Hayward was noticed by John Browne, who was the Executive Director of BP Exploration - main research-and-production division of the company. On becoming Chief Executive Officer of BP in 1991, Browne appointed Hayward as one of his assistants. According to the confession of Hayward, he had learnt a lot more while working as an assistant to Browne for 18 months than during his entire career. In 1995, Browne became CEO of the company.
In 1992, Hayward was appointed as manager for geological prospecting in Colombia, where large oil deposits of Cusiana and Cupiagua were explored under his supervision. In September 1995 Hayward was appointed as President of BP oil production in Venezuela. In August 1997 Hayward returned to London and was made the Director of Geological Prospecting Department at BP. In 1999, he became the Vice President of BP Amoco Exploration and Production.
In 2000, Hayward was appointed as chief treasurer of the BP group. He supervised the business actives of the corporation and in particular, worked on studying the oil deposits in Azerbaijan. At the end of 2002, Hayward was appointed as the Executive Vice President of BP and Chief Executive Director for geological prospecting and production. At this time a decision was taken to sell 7% share holding to “Lukoil” and purchase additional shares in Russian company “RUSSIA Petroleum”, holding the license for extraction and processing of the Kovyktinsk deposit, which subsequently transferred into the assets of the multinational BP group.
In 2003 Hayward was considered as the probable successor to Brown, BP's CEO, though Browne stated about his future retirement only in the summer of 2006, having planned it at the end of 2008. Despite good financial indicators and growth of assets during the term of Browne, in 2006, Hayward spoke with rigid criticism about the policies of the corporation with respect to safety issues and ecology, including the explosion in Texas and the oil spill in Alaska and also excessive dependence on assets in Russia. Hayward also criticized the insufficient flexibility of management in the corporation. In January 2007, it became known that Browne will retire from the post of CEO without waiting till the end of 2008 and his place will be occupied by Tony Hayward.
In May 2007 Hayward started heading BP as CEO. After his appointment, he declared his intention “to finish the past” by reducing the number of managers to 500 and increased the number of engineers at sites and improvising the organization management of the company. Hayward took 18 months in correcting the position of the company.
As a representative of BP, Hayward was inducted into the Board of Directors of the multinational corporation BP from the time of its inception in 2003. In the given corporation, 50 percent shares belonged to BP and the remaining 50 percent to Russian consortium “Alpha Group”, Access Industries and “Renova” (AAR). The joint company provided about 25 percent of the oil production of BP. After the appointment of Hayward as General Director of BP in the Board of Directors of multinational corporation-BP, his place was given to Andrew Inglis as chief executive of BP's Exploration and Production.
On June 30 2008 Hayward commented on record about the rise in oil prices (about 56,71 dollars for barrel in 2005 to 143,67 dollars at the end of June 2008) stating that the “era of cheap resources” has come to an end and high oil prices speak not about the market speculation but the extraction speed of the resources, which are lagging behind the economic growth that spurred the rise in prices of oil.
Since 2002 Hayward was a non-executive and from 2004 – senior non-executive Director of the Corus Group. From 2000 to 2003 Hayward was included in the advisory board at Citibank. In 2007, Hayward became a non-executive director of the Tata Steel corporation.
Tony Hayward lives in London. He is an honorary President of the Russian-British Society. He is married to Maureen Hayward. The couple has one son Kieran and one daughter Tara. Hayward takes great interest in sailing, football, rugby and cricket.
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Amid the growing public anger on how BP handled the gulf oil spill disaster, the company is axing its chief executive Tony Hayward, who is seen as a key figure to blame. Among the main Hayward's mistakes in the gulf oil spill are - he originally underestimated the disaster, he did not make sure the company acted in timely manner, and the worst of it yet - he took many days off to sail on his personal yacht, while he should have been busy handling the gulf cleanup campaign.
Commenting on his his departure from the BP CEO position, Hayward said in his defense that BP acted as a "model of corporate social responsibility".
BP paid Tony Hayward $20 mil compensation package.
