not sure how to take this...posted on the leyshon energy...

not sure how to take this...posted on the leyshon energy website

British Government Recruits Leyshon Energy Chairman As Chief Executive of Major Projects Authority


John Manzoni: BP high-flyer (Bloomberg)

Dominic O’Connell Sunday Times Published: 2 February 2014

WHITEHALL has achieved one of its biggest recruitment coups in the private sector by hiring John Manzoni, the former BP high-flyer, to run the division responsible for keeping big projects on the rails.

Manzoni, 54, will be chief executive of the Major Projects Authority, the Cabinet Office unit that has oversight of schemes across government, including HS2, the planned high-speed railway, and the Department for Work and Pensions’ troubled Universal Credit programme.

Manzoni was at BP for 24 years and rose to be head of its refining and marketing arm. When Lord Browne left in 2007, he was in the running for the chief executive’s role, but lost out to Tony Hayward.

Browne also went on to a role at the Cabinet Office, where he is now non- executive director and the leader of a clutch of senior business people recruited by the coalition as non-executives in departments.

After BP, Manzoni became chief executive of Talisman Energy, an oil and gas group, but left in September amid investor unrest over the company’s scattered global asset base and a share price that had underperformed rivals. He was a candidate to become chairman of the scandal-stricken Asia Resource Minerals, the Indonesian coalminer formerly called Bumi.

“Manzoni has an impressive record of leading global operations and delivering complex, challenging briefs,” said Francis Maude, minister for the Cabinet Office. “We must continue to improve the civil service’s management of major projects, and I’m confident with his leadership we can go even further.”

Manzoni said: “After 30 years in the private sector, I want to bring that experience to the government’s biggest projects.”

The Major Projects Authority was set up three years ago with the job of improving project management across the civil service.

The previous head, David Pitchford, stood down in July.