After HPCL, the government headhunter struggled to find a suitable candidate for the top job at Bharat Petroleum, as most applicants were narrow specialists lacking multidisciplinary experience needed to run a large organisation.
Photograph: Sivaram V/Reuters
The Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) last month interviewed a dozen candidates including BPCL director (finance) Vetsa Ramakrishna Gupta and its director (refineries) S Khanna but found none suitable for the job of chairman and managing director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), according to a PESB order.
It advised the administrative ministry “to choose an appropriate course of further action for selection including the search cum selection committee,” according to the order.
Incumbent G Krishnakumar superannuates as chairman and managing director of BPCL on April 30 this year.
BPCL is the fourth company in the oil sector where PESB couldn’t find a suitable candidate since 2021.
PESB in May 2023 did not make any recommendation for the top post at Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and the task was then entrusted to a search cum selection committee.
That panel picked Arvindar Singh Sahney who was appointed chairman of IOC in November 2024.
In June last year, PESB interviewed eight candidates, including a director on HPCL board and managing director of Indraprastha Gas Ltd, for the post of chairman and managing director at HPCL but rejected them all.
HPCL top position has been lying vacant since August 31, 2024, when Pushp Kumar Joshi superannuated.
Previously in June 2021, PESB reached a similar conclusion while looking for a candidate for the top job at Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).
A year later, a search-cum-selection committee picked Arun Kumar Singh, the former chairman and managing director of BPCL, for that job.
Most board-level appointments at public sector companies are done on the basis of recommendations of the PESB but the government headhunter has been struggling to find suitable candidates for top jobs that fell vacant since 2021 in the oil sector.
Search-cum-selection committee route has been resorted to as such a panel has flexibility of not just considering candidates who have applied for the job but anyone – from public and private sector – who it deems fit to do the job.
Sources said that the core of the problem is these companies are not creating leaders with wide exposure.
Most of the candidates who appeared for interviews for HPCL and BPCL had spent all their professional careers in just one stream such as only refineries, or LPG sales.
“I wouldn’t call them one trick ponies but they are all narrow specialists.
“When PESB looks at candidates, it essentially is looking for someone who has had multidisciplinary exposure and is capable of leading an organisation whose job is not limited to one discipline of refining oil or selling LPG,” a top official said.
While IOC, BPCL and HPCL refine crude oil into fuels like petrol and diesel, make petrochemicals, and retail fuels, ONGC produces crude oil and gas.
In the past, IOC and BPCL nurtured leaders by giving them multidisciplinary exposure.
IOC had a route called the department of business development where a refinery, finance or marketing person could get exposure to streams other than his core competence.
This created tall leaders like Subir Raha, Prashanto Banerjee and several others after them, another official explained.
Similar was the case with BPCL which also gave its officials multidisciplinary exposure and created stalwarts like Sarthak Behuria, B Ashok among others.
“Take the instance of Arun Kumar Singh. At BPCL, he worked across refinery, retail, LPG, pipelines and supply chain before heading Bharat PetroResources Ltd, the firm’s wholly owned subsidiary for upstream business. It’s only after that he was appointed BPCL chairman. And after getting experience of leading a large company he was appointed chairman of ONGC,” the official said.
BPCL created such leaders but unfortunately that is not happening now, he added.
IOC’s Sahney spent three decades in refinery operations, technical services, and health, safety, and environment (HSE).
He was an executive director in the business development division, handling the petrochemicals business.
This gave him multidisciplinary exposure.
Another official said the situation at HPCL is the most grim as potential candidates have spent all of their professional careers in just one or two disciplines.
“While it is easy to blame PESB and the petroleum ministry, I think the oil companies have to share the blame of not creating a leadership pipeline and nurturing talent,” the first official said.
In case the search cum selection committee is not presented with enough in-house talent, the possibility of an outsider being appointed at HPCL or BPCL is not ruled out, sources added.
