Shell Executive To Discuss Company's Efforts In Post-Katrina New Orleans

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (April 16, 2007) – Andrew Seck, manager business planning & support and vice president for corporate affairs for a number of Shell Exploration & Production companies in the United States, will visit Penn State's Smeal College of Business on April 24 as a guest in the college's executive speaker series, Leadership in Focus: Executive Insights.

Seck will join Smeal Dean James Thomas for an on-stage conversation at 11 a.m. in the Business Building's auditorium, during which Thomas will pose questions submitted by students and faculty in the audience.

He will discuss leadership and business topics, energy issues, Shell's corporate vision, and provide and in-depth look at the company's business continuity efforts in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, an initiative he has led since August 2005.

Seck will talk about how Shell's response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita embraced its corporate commitment to stakeholder engagement and its respect for people and environmental sustainability. Shell's leadership in the aftermath of the hurricanes began as a local response to staff and the communities in which they live, then grew to regional story, and ultimately culminated as a national dialogue on energy related issues.

With the approach of the 2007 hurricane season, Seck will also offer some insight on Shell's evolving approach to business continuity.

Finally, he will share some of his personal perspectives on working in multinational company based on his global career.

At Shell, Seck is the regional business planning and support manager for the company's entire exploration and production (EP) operation in the Americas. Shell's EP team of planners and economists have the responsibility for developing the annual business plan for EP in the Americas (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the United States, and Venezuela); strategic cost leadership; capital approvals and allocation; and strategy and management support.

Prior to joining Shell EP, he worked for eight years in Russia, where he held various positions for Shell in Moscow and for Sakhalin Energy in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Before Shell, Seck worked as senior field engineer for Schlumberger International in various locations throughout Southeast Asia and held several consultancy roles.

He holds a Ph.D. in natural resource law and policy from the Centre for Energy, Petroleum, and Mineral Law & Policy at the University of Dundee in Scotland, and a bachelor's degree in geological engineering from Queen's University in Canada.

About Leadership In Focus: Executive Insights
Leadership in Focus: Executive Insights was designed to complement the Smeal educational experience by bringing high-profile business leaders to the college to connect with students, faculty, and administrators to share some of their experiences in leadership.

Past Executive Insights guests include Joseph Amado, vice president and chief information officer of Philip Morris USA, and James Turley, chairman and chief executive officer of Ernst & Young.

Executive Insights and the Dickinson School of Law will host Ernie Accorsi, former general manager of the New York Giants, Chris Bevilacqua, founder of CSTV, and Art Rooney II, president of the Pittsburgh Steelers, to discuss the business side of sports on April 20.

For more on Executive Insights, visit www.smeal.psu.edu/about/lecture/execin.html.