Head of Castrol leaves after 20 years in the business
Mike Johnson, who has spent 20 years working in the BP and Castrol lubricants business, is stepping down from his role as CEO of Castrol and senior Executive Vice President of BP Lubricants.
His successor is Paul Waterman (48) who has been running the Australia and New Zealand Fuels Value Chain since 2010, took over on July 1. Mike will retire from the business at the end of the year.
Mike (59) joined Castrol in 1993 from St Ivel, the UK’s largest dairy company where he was CEO. Prior to the merger of Castrol with BP in 2000 he was CEO of Castrol UK, Controller for Latin / America, and was Global Marketing Director.
Following the acquisition of Castrol by BP Mike became VP Marketing for the new organisation and in September 2001 was appointed Regional VP for Asia Pacific based in Singapore. Mike returned to the UK in 2005 taking up the role of Regional VP Europe (Automotive) until late 2007 when he took overall charge of the Lubricants business.
“I am sad to be leaving such a growing international business which has gone from strength to strength over the years. We now operate in more than 130 countries and our products are used worldwide from the teenager in Asia who is servicing his first moped to Rolls-Royce in its engine for the first flight of the Airbus A350 XWB, “he said.
His successor Paul Waterman who joined Castrol in 1994, has had plenty of experience in the BP lubricants business. He has spent 11 years in the Lubricants business out of his 20 years downstream experience in the UK, US and Australasia. He was vice president of the automotive Americas region in 2007 and 2008 and then vice president of lubricants B2B businesses (Marine, Industrial, Aviation and Energy lubricants) in 2009.
Paul said: “Mike is a talented leader and has delivered great results over the past six years. Going forward, we have a strong team, with great brands and customer relationships, underpinned by leading technology and an efficient supply chain. I believe this is a very strong foundation to support continued growth into the future and I am very excited to be leading this team.”
