Iain Conn

Iain Cameron Conn (born 1962) is a British businessman. He is the former Group Managing Director at BP and with effect from 1st January 2015 he is the Group CEO of Centrica plc. Centrica is an integrated energy company focused on supplying energy and services to customers in the UK, N.America and Ireland, and also on participating in the natural gas and power value chains with material positions in Exploration and Production, Power Generation and Midstream. Centrica markets under a number of brands including British Gas, Direct Energy and Bord Gais.

From June 2007 until1st October 2014 he was Chief Executive Refining and Marketing for BP in which he had responsibility for BP's customer facing activities in fuels, lubricants and petrochemicals serving about 12 million customers daily in over 70 countries. He had responsibility for Retail and Business to Business marketing globally, and associated manufacturing, logistics and supply chains and BP's product brands including Castrol, BP, Aral and ARCO. In his role as an executive director of the BP Group, Conn also had regional responsibility for Europe, Southern Africa and Asia Pacific and had Group Brand responsibility from 2004 to 2014.

Conn has been on the Board of BP plc since July 2004. Prior to taking up his current role in 2007, from 2004 to 2007 he held functional responsibility for safety & operations, technology, marketing, human resources, information technology, procurement and supply chain management. He also had regional responsibility for Europe, Africa, Middle East, Russia, Caspian, and Asia Pacific. From 2002 to 2004 he was Chief Executive for Petrochemicals. Since joining BP in 1986 he has held a variety of roles in oil trading, marketing, and exploration & production.

Early life

Conn was born in Edinburgh, educated in Musselburgh, Scotland and subsequently studied chemical engineering and management at Imperial College London.

Career

Conn was previously chief executive of BP’s petrochemicals segment, the third largest petrochemicals business in the world, with over 16,000 employees and large-scale manufacturing plants in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Before that he worked in BP’s downstream segment as group vice president responsible for BP’s marketing operations in Europe. He was also responsible for the integration of Veba Oel into the BP organisation and had regional responsibility for BP in Europe. Additionally he was a member of the executive committee for BP’s global refining and marketing business and in 2000 he held responsibility for markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America. His career with BP began in commercial refining and oil trading but he has spent time in various roles in Exploration & Production, Refining & Marketing and in Group headquarters.

Other responsibilities

Conn is a non-executive director at BT plc, and was previously non-executive director and Senior Independent Director of Rolls-Royce Group plc; chairman of the advisory board of The Imperial College Business School and Member of the Council of the Imperial College (Governing body); a member of the advisory boards of the Centre for European Reform and of the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University.

Fellowships

Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Institution of Chemical Engineers, and City and Guilds of London Institute