Lodewijk Christiaan van Wachem
 Lodewijk Christiaan van Wachem     (businessman) | |
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| Born | 31 July 1931 Pangkalan Brandan, Indonesia |
| Died | 24 August 2019 (Age 88) Wassenaar |
| Alma mater | TU Delft |
| Member of | Zurich Insurance Group |
Dutch chairman of the board of Royal Dutch Shell | |
Lodewijk Christiaan van Wachem was a Dutch chairman of the board of Royal Dutch Shell.[1][2][3]
Career
Van Wachem graduated in mechanical engineering from TU Delft in 1953, after which he joined the Royal Dutch/Shell Group. He worked in Venezuela, Nigeria, Brunei and the Netherlands; from 1 July 1977 he was director of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Petroleum Maatschappij, part of Shell. On July 1, 1982, he was named group president, a position he held until 1992; his predecessor was Dirk de Bruyne and his successor was Cor Herkströter. He then became chairman of the supervisory board of Shell, a position he would also hold for ten years. In addition, he joined other company boards.
During his CEO position at Shell, he had to deal with years of big profits as well as big losses, and oil prices going up and down.
Since the mid-1970s, protests have also taken place about Shell's important presence in South Africa under the apartheid regime; the presence of Shell also led to a nomination for an honorary doctorate for him was canceled due to protests in 1988.
Van Wachem spoke openly against the apartheid system, but felt that it had to change from within. He was invited by Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk to the 1993 Nobel Prize award, which he saw as confirmation of his decision to remain in South Africa.
During his time, it also emerged that board members and supervisory directors at Shell were among the highest-earning employees in the Netherlands. Also as chairman of the supervisory board of Philips, he defended the considerable salary increase of CEO Gerard Kleisterlee in 2004.
Van Wachem passed away in 2019 at the age of 88.
