By James Whitfield · Executive Editor, Leadership Desk · Mon, May 4, 2026 · 8:10 AM EST
Occidental Names Richard Jackson CEO as Vicki Hollub Retires, effective June 1, succeeding Vicki Hollub, who is retiring after a decade as the first woman to lead a major American oil company.
The Houston-based energy major confirmed the transition late Friday, ending months of board-level speculation over how — and when — Hollub would step down. Jackson, who currently serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, has been with Occidental for more than two decades and is widely seen as the candidate of continuity rather than reinvention.
A succession a decade in the making
Hollub took the top job in 2016 and spent the early part of her tenure surviving an oil-price crash, then engineered the $55 billion acquisition of Anadarko in 2019 — a deal that briefly made Occidental the largest producer in the Permian Basin and cost Hollub a public confrontation with Carl Icahn. She also became the most publicly identifiable supporter of direct air capture inside the US oil patch, anchoring Occidental’s bet on Stratos in West Texas.
She leaves with the company carrying a market capitalisation that has more than recovered from its pandemic lows and a balance sheet considerably less levered than the one she inherited from the Anadarko close.
| “She was the first woman to lead a major American oil company and ranked No. 90 on the 2025 Fortune Most Powerful Women list.”— Fortune 500 Power Moves, May 1, 2026 |
Why Jackson, and why now
Jackson’s promotion is unusually unsurprising for an Occidental top-of-house move. He has run the operating side of the business through the Iran-war volatility of the last two quarters and was the architect of the cost programme that pulled US onshore breakevens below $40 a barrel for the company’s core acreage. Inside the company, he is regarded as the executive most fluent in both the chemicals business and the carbon-management arm — the two non-upstream legs Hollub has spent years trying to build into real earnings contributors.
For Berkshire Hathaway, which holds close to 30 percent of the company, the choice is essentially a vote for the existing strategy. Buffett’s weekend remarks at the Omaha annual meeting did not mention Occidental directly, but his comfort with the company’s capital allocation has been one of the open secrets of the US energy sector since 2022.
What changes from June 1
Two things are worth watching. First, whether Jackson accelerates the carbon-management spin-off conversation that Hollub had repeatedly described as a multi-year project. Second, how the dividend trajectory holds if Brent stays elevated — Occidental’s free cash flow at $111 oil is materially higher than its current capital-return programme assumes, and shareholders will want a clearer line of sight on the upside.
Hollub will remain on the board through the company’s 2026 annual general meeting in late spring, providing what Occidental describes as a measured handover rather than a clean break. The new CEO inherits a strong tape — and a highly attentive set of shareholders.
Tags: Leadership Moves, Occidental Petroleum, Energy, Vicki Hollub, CEO Transition
Promotion — LinkedIn
| LinkedIn PostVicki Hollub broke the glass ceiling at the top of US oil. From June 1, she hands the keys to Richard Jackson — a 20-year Occidental veteran who built the cost programme that took the company’s Permian breakevens below $40. The full read on what changes (and what doesn’t), including the Berkshire angle, is now live on TSD →#Leadership #CEO #Energy #Occidental #TheSuccessDigest |
