Darren Woods

Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, took over as chief executive in 2017. The company has been around for more than a century, starting out “basically making kerosene to replace whale oil for lamps,” Woods told Fortune earlier this year, and going on to power everything from airplanes to automobiles. Exxon Mobil has been under pressure to move away from more carbon-intensive energy sources. An activist investor a few years ago challenged Exxon Mobil over its slow movement on alternative energy and won a few board seats. Critics say the campaign did not achieve major progress. Woods said this year that the board changes have “been a benefit to the company, to reinforce the path that we are on, contrary to maybe what many people thought out there.” America’s largest oil and gas company by revenue earned record-breaking profits in 2022, owing, in part, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent oil price volatility. Woods worked his way up through the ranks of the oil giant, first serving as a planning analyst in 1992, and later as vice president and senior vice president.