Centrica plc announced the appointment of Richard Hookway as Chief Executive, Centrica Business effective December, at which time he will also join the Centrica plc Board. This follows Centrica’s announcement in July regarding Mark Hanafin’s retirement from the Company at the end of March 2019. Richard will join Centrica and the Executive Committee during the first week of November, allowing him to work through a handover with Mark. Mark Hanafin will step down from the Board by the end of November.
Richard has worked 35 years in the energy sector at BP. During that time he had a successful and varied career, most recently as Group Chief Operating Officer for Global Business Services and IT. Prior to this Richard spent seven years as CFO for BP’s Downstream division, which includes all B2B and B2C customer-facing businesses, refining and marketing and the P&L for BP’s oil trading activities. Richard previously held a number of senior commercial roles, both in the UK and in North America, including as head of the Natural Gas Liquids business based in Houston and the Commercial and Industrial Marketing business for Europe, including accountability for BP’s internal power developer and provider of energy management services. His career has given him a very broad experience across a number of business disciplines including finance, marketing, business development, oil and gas trading and commodity risk management. He also held positions in exploration and production, petrochemicals and in group functions.