David John Lesar (born May 30, 1953) is an American businessman who is the former chair of Halliburton Energy Services. He was the CEO of Halliburton for 17 years from 2000 to 2017. Trained as a

Certified Public Accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Stat ...

, Lesar spent 16 years at

Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen LLP was an American accounting firm based in Chicago that provided auditing, tax advising, consulting and other professional services to large corporations. By 2001, it had become one of the world's largest multinational corpo ...

. He had spent most of his career at Andersen, where he worked on their Halliburton account. In 1995, Lesar was hired by Halliburton as a new vice president. July 24, 2019 David Lesar was named the interim CEO of HCSC. On June 30, 2020, Lesar was named the President and CEO of CenterPoint Energy. On August 15, 2024, he was named Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Superior Energy Services, effective August 19, 2024.

Education

Lesar was born in Madison, Wisconsin and is a 1978 graduate of the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

, where he earned both a Bachelor of Science and a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

degree.

Career

As a

, Lesar spent 16 years working at

. In 1995, Lesar joined

Halliburton Halliburton Company is an American multinational corporation and the world's second-largest oil service company which is responsible for most of the world's fracking operations. It employs approximately 55,000 people through its hundreds of su ...

. Within a year of his arrival, Lesar was appointed as CEO of KBR, in addition to his duties as CFO of Halliburton. In 1997, Lesar was appointed as the company's President and Chief operating officer. In 2000, Lesar became CEO of Halliburton. He stepped down as the CEO in 2017 and became the Chairman of Halliburton's board of directors. He retired on December 31, 2018 in accordance with the company's mandatory retirement age. He was succeeded by CEO and President Jeff Miller. He also serves on the board of directors at Lyondell Chemical, is a member of the Upstream Committee of the

American Petroleum Institute The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent nearly 600 corporations involved in extraction of petroleum, production, oil refinery, refinement, pipeline ...

and is on the board of directors of the American Iranian Council, an organization devoted to the normalization of American-Iranian relations.

Controversies

The movie '' Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers'' claims that Lesar has been paid over $42,000,000 by Halliburton since the beginning of the

Iraq war The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...

, but this amount has risen significantly since the release of the film. According to ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' Lesar received about $14.9 million in 2010 alone, not including stock options or other deferred incentives – a 20% increase over his 2009 pay package, according to a securities filing. In November 2014, Lesar faced criticism over his bid to take over

Baker Hughes Baker Hughes Company is an American global energy technology company co-headquartered in Houston, Texas and London, UK. As one of the world's largest oil field services, industrial and energy technology companies, it provides products and serv ...

: "the smaller oil-field services rival, in an email to Mr. Lesar, described Halliburton's actions as intransigent and inappropriate".Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar Knows Controversy
''The Wall Street Journal'', November 15, 2014

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lesar, David J. 1954 births Wisconsin School of Business alumni American chief executives of energy companies Living people Halliburton people American expatriates in the United Arab Emirates American chief operating officers American chief financial officers Businesspeople from Madison, Wisconsin