John Browne, CEO of BP (formerly British Petroleum) from 1995 to 2007, advised five prime ministers and built a reputation as a visionary leader, was regularly voted the most admired businessman by his peers, and is a major player in international energy resources and applications. A master of business efficiency and an oil industry executive who acknowledged global climate change, he became known as the “Sun King” for his bolstering speeches on the importance of moving past the limits of oil and gas toward solar energy, wind power, and renewable energies.
Now, Browne brings his in-depth expertise on science, energy efficiencies, trade relationships, and geopolitical and environmental economies together in Seven Elements That Have Changed The World: An Adventure of Ingenuity and Discovery (Pegasus; March 2014; $27.95) a compelling and engaging story of how our application of seven elements—iron, carbon, gold, silver, uranium, titanium, and silicon—have changed modern life, for good and ill.
Carbon unlocked the potential of other elements; with its energy, we smelt iron, mine gold, and enrich uranium. Yet today we face the consequences of carbon energy’s effect on rising global temperatures. In this “Silicon Age,” we communicate effortlessly, with instant access to vast amounts of information, an open and interactive entrée that also has supported political revolutions. Uranium is productive (nuclear power) and destructive (nuclear bombs); our desire for alluring gold is the foundation of global trade, and has led to the death of millions, as well.
Emphasizing that this journey is far from over, Browne also highlights some of the individuals who used the elements to change the course of history—from Carnegie to Curie, Pizzaro to Rockefeller—and shares his own experiences with oil barons in Russia, tribesmen in Colombia, and technology wizards in Silicon Valley.
John Browne is a Partner at Riverstone, an energy and power-focused private equity firm, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Tate galleries, and a fellow of the Royal Society. His first book, Beyond Business: An Inspirational Memoir from a Remarkable Leader, was published in 2010 to great acclaim.
In Seven Elements That Have Changed The World, John Browne combines history, science, and politics to explore human passion, ingenuity, and discovery and the surprising new uses for these seven elements to transform modern consumer society, the global energy sector, and start a technology revolution.
ABOUT JOHN BROWN
Lord Browne was born in 1948, and holds a degree in Physics from Cambridge University and an MS in Business from Stanford University, California.
He joined BP in 1966 as a university apprentice. In 1989, he became Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of BP Exploration based in London. In September 1991, he joined the Board of The British Petroleum Company plc. as a Managing Director. He was appointed Group Chief Executive on 10 June 1995. Following the merger of BP and Amoco, he became Group Chief Executive of the combined group on 31 December 1998 until 1 May 2007.
Having held a variety of non-executive board positions, he is now a Partner of Riverstone Holdings LLC, and the UK Government’s Lead Non-Executive Board member.
Lord Browne was appointed a Trustee of the Tate Gallery on 1 August 2007 and Chairman of the Trustees in January 2009. He is a Fellow and Former President of The Royal Academy of Engineering, and Chairman of a variety of advisory boards.
He was voted Most Admired CEO by Management Today from 1999-2002.
He was knighted in 1998 and made a life peer in 2001.
The Browne Report, an independent review of Higher Education and Student Finance was published in October 2010.
His memoirs Beyond Business were published in February 2010, and his book Seven Elements that have Changed the World was published in April 2013.