-By Danlami Nasir Isah
The oil and gas industry in Nigeria has been traditionally male-dominated, with few women ascending to top management positions. But for the first time in Shell Nigeria’s over 60-year history, a woman recently took over the reins of leadership of one of its strategic companies. She is Engineer Elohor Aiboni. A self-motivated person, with a strong sense of business priorities, Aiboni is one of few women to change the narrative, becoming a leader of the multinational oil company – Shell’s offshore business in Nigeria’s Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCo).
She joined Shell over 19 years ago, during which she moved from a field engineer to several positions in Production Operations, Project and Asset Management, Operations Readiness and Assurance as well as management of third-party interface across several Shell assets in Nigeria and Kazakhstan. She later became a senior engineer. Thereafter she served as a manager at different tiers, before transitioning to asset operations manager of Bonga, and presently SNEPCo boss.
Until her appointment as the Managing Director of SNEPCo, Aiboni was the Bonga Asset Manager responsible for overseeing end-to-end production delivery for Nigeria’s pioneer deep-water Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, Bonga, an asset that has produced over 900 million barrels of oil since it began operations in 2005. Prior to her role as Bonga Asset Manager, Aiboni led production delivery for shallow offshore as Asset Manager for Sea Eagle FPSO in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree (B.Sc.) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Benin, Nigeria. She also holds a master’s degree in Integrated Environmental Management from the University of Bath, UK.
The new SNEPCo boss is passionate about developing talent and leads a diverse team that strive to simplify work processes and pursue continuous improvement. Her leadership of the Bonga team saw the asset receive numerous awards, including the CEO HSSE Awards, Upstream Impact Award, and the Asset of the Year Runner up in 2019, in the Shell Group.
“Aiboni’s appointment is a product of diligence, competence and commitment to the Shell ideals and core values, amidst the company’s focus on diversity and inclusion.
“We take pride in our intention of being one of the most diverse and inclusive organisations in the world, and focus on further improving inclusion and representation in critical areas, including gender,” Media Relations Manager of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), Bamidele Odugbesan, quoted Shell’s Senior Vice President for Nigeria, Marno de Jong, as saying.
Aiboni is experienced in project to asset handover, operations of oil and gas facilities with HSE, cross-discipline, cross-functional units and multi-operating unit exposure with great interpersonal skills. She is a certified quality management system (QMS) auditor, trained health, safety, security & environment (HSSE) & control framework auditor.
Very self-motivated, with great ability to work easily without supervision, Aiboni is also result-oriented. She is always showing a sense of urgency, with a strong desire to face challenges positively. Aiboni is described by her colleagues as a good communicator, with strong sense of business priorities.
She is married, with children, and her interests include: watching football, lawn tennis, listening to soothing music and traveling.