Erik Bonino, Executive Vice President Downstream Technology, Shell Research

If I were Belinda I would have dinner with Ralph and get him to talk through his vision and project. I would show my complete support, while asking how he envisaged the technical work progressing and building the required integration with existing company systems. And I would hope he’d ask for help or my view on how to do it. But whether he asked for my view or not, I would share with him my reflections and show how a little of the right structure would achieve his goals and timelines. My focus would be to establish a steering team with him as leader. I would propose to join to provide IT with contractual oversight of the supplier’s progress and quality of work and IT integration issues as required. I would also propose that a working team be set up reporting to the steerco on systems and data integration. Folk from my team and the supplier would be there, while the leader of the team is open for debate – I would give the final say to Ralph.