M. Fran Keeth holds both global and regional positions with Shell. At the global level she is Executive Vice President, Customer Fulfillment and Product Business Units, and Deputy CEO for Shell Chemicals Limited. At the regional level she is President and CEO of Shell Chemical L.P., a U.S. operating company. Shell's global chemicals businesses are among the largest petrochemical operations in the world. They comprise one of the five core businesses of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group - the others being Exploration and Production, Oil Products, Gas and Power Generation and Renewables. Shell Group companies operate in 135 countries and employ more than 90,000 people worldwide.

Fran joined Shell Oil Company in 1970, where she held positions of increasing responsibility in the Head Office Finance and Tax departments. In 1988, she assumed the position of Assistant General Counsel, Litigation and Research. She was named General Manager, Auditing, in 1989, and General Manager, Products Finance, in 1991. In 1992, she moved to London to handle a series of assignments in Shell International Petroleum Company as Deputy Group Controller, Area Coordinator for the Far East, and Finance Manager, Oil Products. Fran left Shell to join Mobil Corporation as Controller and Principal Accounting Officer in 1996. She returned a year later to assume the position of Executive Vice President, Finance and Business Systems, for Shell Chemicals Limited. She was appointed to her current position in 2001. As part of her current role, Fran sits on the boards of Basell, a 50/50 polyolefin joint venture between Shell and BASF; CNOOC and Shell Petrochemical Company Limited, a 50/50 Chinese petrochemical joint venture; and Infineum, a 50/50 additives joint venture with ExxonMobil. Additionally, she is a chairperson of Elemica, an industrywide ERP-to-ERP solutions company.

Fran holds a bachelor's degree in accounting, an MBA and a JD degree from the University of Houston in Texas. She is the first woman to head a major U.S. chemical company, and was recently named one of the 50 most powerful women in business in the United States by Fortune Magazine.

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