Women In Propane Profile: Promoting the Benefits of Propane and the Propane Industry

Alison Abbott has built a rewarding career in the propane industry. She now works to promote to others the opportunities the industry offers as a career and the benefits propane offers as a resource.

As communications director with the World LPG Association (WLPGA) in Paris, Abbott manages all the group’s internal and external communications. She also set up and now manages the Women in LPG Global Network (WINLPG), an initiative of WLPGA.

“When I am asked what I do, I say, ‘I work in gas,’” she says. “To some, that doesn’t sound very exciting, but I can say the industry is very friendly. I hear ‘family’ over and over. I love my job and I am lucky to do what I do. This industry offers a lot of support.”

Before joining WLPGA, Abbott had lived and worked in both her native U.K. and France. While studying for her degree in Modern Languages at Nottingham Trent University in the U.K., she spent a year in Tours, France. Later, she joined a computer graphics startup in Sheffield, U.K.

“This was a happy accident,” she says. “When you study French, the natural progression is to teach. However, at that time in the U.K., there were many startups, and I joined one in my hometown. I started as a secretary and then grew into the marketing role as I learned about the company.”

With that experience in marketing and her knowledge of French, she later returned to France, opening an office in Paris for an American exhibition design agency. She then became marketing communications manager for a telecommunications company in the Paris area.

Abbott joined the World LPG Association in Paris as communications director in 2010. “This was more by luck than by design; it was one of those networking opportunities,” she says.

“I’ve always worked in global communications,” she adds. “Marketing and communications are transferrable skills; whatever the industry, you can apply that skill set. Initially I was quite ignorant of LPG, so it was a real baptism by fire. I learned through reading a lot, mentoring, and support from the team at the association. We are on the road quite a lot, attending industry events and meeting members from other countries, so I soaked that all up too.”

In her position with WLPGA, Abbott travels at least once a month to work with members in one of the 140 countries the association covers. One of her recent business trips was to Myanmar. For the interview for this article, she spoke on the phone from a conference in Columbia.

Among her responsibilities at WLPGA is the global rollout of the Exceptional Energy brand. This is meant to position propane in a consistent and positive manner by developing a global brand with a recognizable look and feel and clear, common messaging around the world.

“Like the Woolmark on a suit, the Exceptional Energy logo represents the quality of LPG,” Abbott explains. “It is not to compete with existing brands; it is to support them.”

“Everywhere in the world, the product is called something else — propane, LPG, LP-gas… Exceptional Energy is a brand that unifies worldwide,” she adds.

In 2015, Abbott was asked to set up WINLPG. Then, as now, the mission of WINLPG is to support and help empower women in the LPG industry by leadership, coaching, mentoring, and promoting role models and case studies. At this year’s World LPG Forum in Houston, WINLPG will announce the winner of its inaugural Woman of the Year Award.

“Our network helps promote recognition of women in the industry,” Abbott says. “We run this as a business. If we go into a company and talk about WINLPG, we say we help women network and share talents and experiences by meeting women from other companies and countries.”

Earlier this summer, the National Propane Gas Association (NPGA) Women in Propane Council (WIP) signed an agreement to become an official National Chapter of WINLPG.

“We have worked very closely with them since Women in Propane was launched,” Abbott says. “They are very advanced in management and we can learn from that. What the U.S. gets back is, I present at meetings what is happening around the world.”

Abbott notes that a recent report prepared by the World Petroleum Council and the Boston Consulting Group found that the oil and gas industry has a negative perception and is perceived as a poor career choice among women. Women, she adds, make up 55% of the workforce. Abbott and others in the propane organizations are working to improve those perceptions.

“Getting more women and young talent into the industry will help,” she says. “Embracing modern technology and social media will also help. If we don’t shout, others will shout around us. Even though the propane industry has a relatively small voice, we have to try.”

One example of the good work being done by the propane industry is WLPGA’s Cooking for Life campaign, which aims to facilitate the transition of one billion people from cooking with dirty and dangerous fuels like biomass or coal to clean-burning propane.

“The industry does really good things,” Abbott says. “Cooking for Life is potentially saving lives by transferring people from biomass to LPG. It’s a game changer.”

—Steve Relyea