Who is Magda Chambriard, the next CEO of Petrobras?
This week, Jean Paul Prates stepped down as the chief executive of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil and gas giant.
His exit followed a long and often nasty political feud with Mines and Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira and Chief of Staff Rui Costa, who have been pushing for more government control over the company. Petrobras shares crashed by more than 6 percent the day after the decision was announced.
State of play. Following the abrupt announcement, the Petrobras board appointed Clarice Coppetti, the company’s executive director of corporate affairs, as caretaker CEO. On the same day, the government picked Magda Chambriard to be the next full-time CEO.
- Ms. Chambriard, 67, is a civil engineer who worked at Petrobras for 22 years before moving to the oil and gas regulatory agency in the early 2000s. She led the agency between 2012 and 2016 and has since worked as a private consultant.
Churn. Ms. Chambriard will be the company’s sixth CEO in six years, which says a lot about the level of political interference in the organization since the government of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro.
Why it matters. Ms. Chambriard shares the Workers’ Party’s developmentalist vision of the economy and is bullish on the idea of Brazil making new investments in oil exploration and refining, two areas the company had been divesting from in recent...
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