The BBC News account of the BP Albert Manifold removal described conduct that included what the BBC characterised, based on its own understanding, as ‘bullying’ and ‘overbearing’ behaviour. If accurate, this was not a personality clash the board could paper over. It was a test of whether BP’s directors still had the nerve to act decisively. They did.
The easy narrative writes itself. A plodding set of non-executives couldn’t stomach the blunt, results-driven chair they had specifically hired to shake the company awake. Eight months in, he is gone. BP, on this reading, remains as dysfunctional as ever, with Shell circling and shareholders despairing.
My reading is the opposite. This looks, unusually for BP, like a board doing precisely what boards are supposed to do.
The Case for the BP Albert Manifold Removal
The directors identified ‘serious concerns’ related to ‘important governance standards, oversight and conduct’. According to Board Agenda, press accounts focused on Manifold’s alleged blurring of the chair-CEO boundary, his conduct towards colleagues, and his approach to contact between non-executives and management. The board, including chief executive Meg O’Neill, agreed the conduct was ‘unacceptable’. They removed him promptly rather than managing the situation quietly.
That is exactly what governance frameworks require. Boards must take whistleblowing concerns seriously. The directors were obliged to form a view; they formed one.
Yes, the lack of a detailed public explanation is frustrating. Manifold’s complaint about anonymous briefings going beyond the board’s formal statement is understandable, and one can have some sympathy with him on that specific point. But the absence of a press release itemising conduct allegations is not, in itself, evidence of bad governance. It is how these things work.
Crucially, this was not a disagreement over strategy. It was not the non-executives getting cold feet about a turnaround plan. The distinction matters enormously and keeps getting lost in the coverage.
What Comes Next for BP’s Board
Context is worth holding onto. Reuters reports that O’Neill is BP’s fifth chief executive since 2020. That is a genuine governance problem, one that long predates Manifold’s eight months in the role. Bernard Looney’s 2023 exit, after he was found to have ‘failed to fully detail relationships with colleagues’, was the board failing to grip a problem first time around. The subsequent drift on strategy, the slow-motion retreat from Looney’s green positioning, the appointment of Murray Auchincloss when a break from the past might have served better: these were the real failures. Manifold’s removal is not a continuation of that pattern. If anything, it breaks it.
Was appointing Manifold wise in the first place? Probably not, given the outcome. He was a highly successful chief executive at CRH, the Irish building materials group. But running a FTSE 100 company and chairing one are genuinely different disciplines. A 2023 report by search firm Heidrick & Struggles, cited by Board Agenda, found that the FTSE 100 chair role had become ‘harder and more demanding’ and suggested that ‘aspiring chairs should be more thoughtful about taking it on’. Manifold was not an experienced big-company chair. The board used Egon Zehnder for the search. The appointment was a risk. It did not pay off.
None of which makes Amanda Blanc the villain. The clamour from some fund managers for the Aviva chief executive to step back from the next chair search misunderstands what a senior independent director actually does. Blanc, who has been on BP’s board since 1 September 2022, according to Sharecast, cannot unilaterally impose a candidate. The process involves the full board. BP’s official press release confirmed that Ian Tyler was appointed as interim chair with immediate effect; he will presumably be deeply involved in identifying Manifold’s successor, unless he becomes a candidate himself.
The BBC also reported that Manifold’s removal came after BP posted a doubling in profit following a surge in oil prices since the start of the Iran war. The business, in other words, has a tailwind. O’Neill has a real opportunity to deliver the ‘simpler, stronger, more valuable company’ she has promised.
The BP Albert Manifold removal will fade as a scandal faster than the commentators predicting permanent damage expect. The board acted. The company has leadership in place. The question now is straightforward: who chairs BP next, and whether they have run something at this scale before?
