Shell appoints new Australian head

The Hague-based LNG giant Shell said that its unit, Shell Australia named Zoe Yujnovich as a successor to Andrew Smith as chairman of the Shell companies in Australia from April 1, 2017.

Smith will take up the position of executive vice president trading & supply from May this year, returning to London to assume responsibility for all of Shell’s trading and shipping activities globally.

Zoe Yujnovich will relocate to Shell’s Australian headquarters in Perth to assume both Smith’s executive vice president Australia & New Zealand position and responsibility as country chair.

Yujnovich is currently executive vice president oil sands based in Calgary. Prior to joining Shell in 2014, she held frontline and management roles in mining across three continents. She joined Rio Tinto in 1996, where she held roles including company president in Brazil and CEO of the Iron Ore Company of Canada.

Commenting on the change, Smith said the company’s business in Australia transformed since he took the position in 2010, with the sale of the refining business, including the profitable retail division. He added that the company moved its upstream business into operatorship, through the acquisition of QGC and progress of the Prelude floating LNG project,  and saw first gas flow from Gorgon LNG, noting that Shell’s Australian portfolio is a globally significant LNG export business.