Premium Oil & Gas

Premium Oil & gas is the Dutch holding company of one of the world’s largest petroleum and gas groups. The organisation employs over 80,000 staff in 80 countries and is best known to the general public through its 25000 service stations.

POGs main activities are the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas, together with the marketing, supply & transportation of these products. The company earns revenue of around 100billion euros per annum based on its daily production of its 2 million barrels of crude oil and eight billion cubic feet of natural gas, plus daily sales of six million barrels of refines products.

Over 90% of POGs executives are Dutch nationals, of whom five precent are women. This concentration can be explained by the company’s Dutch origins and its consequent patterns of recruitment. Recently, however POGs Chief Executive officer, Ruud van de Zende, Has pronounced that for the company to achieve ita aspiration of being a truly great global company it must work towards building a top management team that is visibly diverse. It should also continue to strive towards being “genuinely meritocratic” at entry level, attracting and retaining talent across the globe regardless of background, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation. POGs stated intention is to respect different cultures and the dignity of individual of all countries.

The company also aspires, says Zende, to be a modern global learning organisation. This will, he claims, enable success to be spread right across the company. The aim is to run a company that is responsive and flexible and that is distinguished by core values and objectives that are embedded everywhere.

The vision represents quite a challenge for a giant of a company that seeks to connect its central group headquarters with more than 120 decentralised business units. Business unit leaders are encouraged to operate in many ways as if they are running their own separate business, but they are...