Get an insight into some of the career paths of our current Future Leaders Programme members. Find out more about the programme and how to apply at bp.com/flp

1. AnnabelYork
Advisor: Performance Management Refining Optimisation
Future Leaders Programme
My first role played to my previous experience with regulation, and found me in BP’s trading arm (BP IST)
working as part of the financial regulatory and compliance team. The financial aspect of commodity trading
though was new – and exciting. After a year and a half I decided to use the programme to really learn the
core of the business and found a role in a German refinery where I work in a performance management
team charged with ‘refining optimisation’. Essentially this means we review crude and feedstock decisions
and seek to identify potential new opportunities, changes to refinery production and/or product mix to
consider and insights and learnings about the choices that were made. It enables an over-all commercial
view of a very complex refinery.
Two years into the FLP and I am delighted to say it has lived up to all expectations, delivering its
commitment to do what it promises in all aspects:
• Facilitating my entrance into a large and complex organisation
• Enabling me to make the most of the opportunities presented by BP
• Time abroad and in different parts of the business – with support
• Responsibility from day one
• Part of an interesting and valuable network
Would I recommend the FLP? Absolutely!”
With dual nationality (English and French), Spain as her birth place and London the city she grew up in, it was perhaps no
surprise that Annabel developed a keen interest in European politics and culture. She chose to study History and German
at Oxford University which led her to spend a year in Berlin and work for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German
Parliament.
“I was also fortunate enough to travel to Russia where I realised just how crucial energy was to international relations. I decided to continue my
studies at the College of Europe in Bruges and focussed on the energy policy of Europe and Russia. Following graduation I worked in the energy
department of the European Commission and experienced first-hand the need to deeply understand the business to develop sound policy. So I
took up a position at the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers and a few years later was accepted at INSEAD (a graduate business
school with campuses in Europe and Asia) to complete an MBA.
It was while I was in Singapore that I came across BP’s FLP programme and was really impressed – it looked great with a framework to quickly
navigate and learn how a large, global organisation works as well as a secondment abroad for two years, so I decided to apply.