Albert Manifold’s dismissal at BP raises more questions than answers

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Albert Manifold, the chair of BP, has been removed with immediate effect by the oil major’s board over “serious concerns” about “governance oversight” and “conduct issues it deems unacceptable”.

So what? Reading between the lines of a BP board statement has become something of an art. The hint in this one is that Manifold’s dismissal was, according to a former senior employee, “domestic, not strategic” – a problem of personal conduct rather than any disagreement over BP’s direction.

What we know. Sources close to the company claim the decision to remove Manifold less than a year since he joined was due to alleged behaviour described as “bullying”, but would not elaborate on what exactly this entailed. Manifold did not respond to a request for comment, but a source who had spoken with him alleges the decision caught him by surprise. He told the FT he would contest the claims.

It’s understood that Manifold, who had previously spent ten years as chief executive of building materials company CRH where he was known for a hard-charging approach, pulled in multiple top leaders at BP after his arrival and lectured them on the business and its strategic direction.

Whether this itself crossed a line is not clear. He also had plans to slim down BP’s board, to “allow for faster ​decision-making”. That’s now been aptly demonstrated.

“It’s a very genteel company, and it just doesn’t take [well] to outbursts and mistreatment by anyone. It just will not tolerate it,” said another former employee.

Dry tinder. Prior to claims about his conduct, Manifold had just emerged from a bruising annual meeting with BP shareholders, in which 18.2% voted against his re-election. A key point of criticism had been BP’s refusal to include a resolution filed by climate activists, which has appeared on the company’s shareholder ballot successively for the last 16 years.

Mark Van Baal of Follow This, the collective that filed the resolution with support from major institutional investors, questioned Manifold’s refusal to engage: “Was there any handover from [previous chair Helge] Lund to Manifold? Because in a normal handover, you say to your successor: your shareholders are revolting, take them seriously. Manifold did the opposite.”

A bonfire. Manifold is the fourth significant exit at the top of BP in three years.

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  Bernard Looney was fired as chief executive in 2023 for failing to disclose personal relationships at work;

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  Helge Lund was defenestrated last year after overseeing a botched pivot to green energy that went down poorly with investors; and

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  Murray Auchincloss soon followed amid pressure from activist investor Elliott Management.

Such a rate of churn raises questions of due diligence. Nick Mazan, oil and gas strategy lead at ACCR, said that BP “needs to reflect on how its chair search process, overseen by Dame Amanda Blanc, could have done better to prevent this situation. Shareholders will rightly be asking questions about the board’s capability”. Headhunter Egon Zehnder led searches for both Looney’s successor, Auchincloss, and Lund’s successor, Manifold.

Tough at the top. BP’s newest chief executive, Meg O’Neill, is barely two months into the role. On the fundamentals it’s actually going rather well. Q1 was a bumper quarter for oil trading and, until a 5% slide yesterday, the share price had sprung upwards from lows in 2025.

“Meg will be a good solid CEO. But the distraction of explaining this situation while she is doing a strategic reset is an added challenge. How do you build investor confidence with this backdrop?” says one source close to the company.

What’s more… Ian Tyler, a former chief effective of Balfour Beatty and chair of Grafton Group, has been appointed as BP’s interim chair. BP declined to comment on whether bullying behaviour was the reason for Manifold’s dismissal.

Photograph by Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images