Word: loudon
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Dates: during 1960-1960
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...this clubby atmosphere, John Loudon employs the same diplomatic skills to make things run smoothly as he does in the international world of oil. He is no desk pounder, has been known to lose his temper only once. Since the Group has an unwritten rule that decisions are never forced to a vote, Loudon, as the primus inter pares, tactfully arbitrates differences, suggests lines of agreement, sounds out his fellow directors. Four are Dutch: Lykle Schepers, 56, in charge of manufacturing, research, chemicals; Luitzen Brouwer. 49, exploration and production; Arnold Hofland, 59, marketing, personnel and Western Europe; and Loudon. Three...
...elegant, wood-paneled office in the Shell building on London's St. Helen's Court (Shell is building an unspectacular-looking 26-story headquarters on the banks of the Thames), Loudon receives a steady flow of international visitors. "This seems to be my American season," said he last week, after conferring with a stream of U.S. bankers and executives. He logs well over 150 hours of air travel a year, on a recent visit to the Middle East dined with Qatar's Sheik Ahmed (he thoughtfully brought along a rocking horse for the sheik...
Channel Flights. Loudon's visas add up to a record of accomplishment. In Venezuela, where he was once the Group's manager, he is credited with persuading the company to become one of the first (along with Créole Petróleum) to adopt the new fifty-fifty profit plan later adopted by the entire oil industry. In Iran, he helped head the international consortium in negotiations in 1954 after Premier Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry. Generally, Loudon prefers to leave most of the on-the-spot negotiating to local managers. Says he: "By comparison, they...
...mile to work each day to keep in shape, is picked up by a trailing Bentley for the rest of the trip. He does not like to take work home with him, usually spends his evenings among London's international set. The pace does not seem to faze Loudon. but his attractive wife has an ulcer. Loudon rarely sends letters, believes that firing off cables is a better way to get attention. One of his favorite sayings: "You can never be too long in a cable or too short in a letter...
...spends weekends during the summer in his white-brick mansion in a pine forest near Holland's Haarlem. Called Koekoeks Duin (Cuckoo's Dune) when Loudon bought it five years ago, it is hung with tapestries and paintings (among them a self-portrait of the young Rembrandt), stocked with old editions, and graced with an icebox liquor cabinet hidden behind a fake bookshelf (Loudon's drink: Scotch and soda). He is an excellent dancer, likes to golf (in the 90s), spent a week last winter skiing in Switzerland with his wife and two of his sons, Fred...