NATIONAL — Mark Lashier has officially stepped into his new role as president and CEO of Phillips 66, 33 years after he started his career as a research engineer in the labs of Phillips Petroleum.
Lashier takes over from Greg Garland, who is stepping down after 10 years as CEO but staying on as executive chairman of the company’s board of directors. Lashier came to Phillips 66 in April 2021 after four years as CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, in which Phillips 66 owns a 50% stake.
“If you had told me when I started my career at Phillips Petroleum that I would be in this role today, I wouldn’t have thought it possible,” Lashier said in an email to employees. “But that’s the great thing about this company: It inspires a sense of discovery. Whether those discoveries are about new ways of providing energy or about your own potential, they have the power to lift you to new heights.”
Lashier has a track record of achieving exceptional business results while delivering safety and operational excellence. His tenure as CEO of CPChem was marked by both ambitious expansion projects and his steady hand through the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic. A chemical engineer who holds 13 patents in the United States, Lashier is committed to growth and innovation, and he has been helping to steer Phillips 66’s transformation efforts as well as its Emerging Energy portfolio of projects.
In a video for employees, Lashier talks about his biggest accomplishment as a research engineer, the advice he gives his 4-year-old grandson that also applies to the energy transition and how he draws inspiration from the words uttered by Admiral David Farragut, namesake of his small hometown in Iowa.
“The challenges are many, but the opportunities are great,” Lashier says in the video. “So like Admiral Farragut, I say damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.”
