Shell's Dutch CEO Marjan van Loon resigns

Marjan van Loon is resigning as CEO of Shell Nederland as of April 1, the company announced on Monday. Frans Everts will succeed her. “We are very grateful to Marjan van Loon,” said Shell’s CEO Wael Sawan. “Under her leadership, we have laid a solid foundation for our transition to clean energy in the Netherlands.”

Van Loon started as Shell Nederland’s CEO on January 1, 2016. She was the company’s first-ever female CEO. Less than a year after taking the position, she had to apologize to Groningen for the damage caused by fracking earthquakes in the province. "We recognize that the Groningen residents received most of the burden from the gas extraction that we all in the Netherlands owe our prosperity to,” she said at the time.

Under Van Loon, Shell became the first company to support the Dutch Climate Agreement and pushed around 6.5 billion euros into the Dutch energy transition, the company said. Shell started constructing a biofuels plant in Rotterdam and decided to build Europe’s largest green hydrogen plant in the same city, among other things.

“I am very proud of what we have achieved in the Netherlands in the past years,” Van Loon said. “We have supplied the country with energy every day without fail, increasingly focusing on cleaner energy.”

She said she has confidence in Everts’ experience as her successor. “I wish him every success in this fantastic role.” Van Loon worked at shell for 34 years.

Everts said he would build on the foundation set by Van Loon in a way that is commercially attractive for Shell. “ Together with partners, we want to make cleaner energy accessible to the entire country. Of course, there are also challenges. I will approach these with an open mind, in line with Marjan van Loon's broad view and transparent way of communicating,” he said.