Jennifer Stewart

Jennifer Stewart, who balances working in both Washington, D.C., and Houston, and has balanced a career in publicly traded companies, government, academia and a trade association with raising two children and earning a law degree while working full time, insists there is no such thing as work/life balance.

“It is a continuum and something, either work or family, will always suffer or take the back seat along that continuum,” she says to young professionals. “Don’t feel guilty about it!”

But that’s not the only advice from Stewart, who was a senior executive at Southwestern Energy and is now director of API’s climate and ESG policy. She also encourages young women in the oil and gas industry to ask for what they want.

“Studies show and my own experience indicates men always ask for what they want and women wait for it to be handed to them. That doesn’t work,” she said. “If the answer is ‘no,’ you are no worse off than if you had not asked. The caveat here is that you must have earned the right to ask (example: promotion or salary raise).”

And Stewart, who has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center, has consciously sought opportunities to educate herself throughout her career:

• Going to law school and becoming an attorney provided a skill set that translates to almost any role.
• Being an executive for a publicly traded company gave exposure to strategic work and how a board of directors and management work together to create or preserve value for shareholders.
• Fiduciary and advisory board roles on emerging company boards showed the challenges of running and growing a business from scratch.
• Learning how much political and government policy making control the macro environment, and thus the success or failure of the oil and gas business. (“Leaders are remiss to not pay attention to what is going on in our federal and state capitols.”)

“When I first entered this industry, [my goal] was making sure I knew everything about it,” she said. “Not just in my area but the geology, drilling and completions, and production. In the finance area, it was complicated areas such as hedging and reserve-based lending. I wanted to know what the words meant when I heard my colleagues’ discussions. Today, I certainly can’t find a reservoir or drill a well, but I know what folks are talking about.”

Like many Influential Women in Energy honorees, Stewart has almost always been the only woman in the room and learned to accept it as her “normal.”

“I took comfort and earned credibility by always having a firm grasp of any subject matter at hand, making sure I knew as much, or preferably more, of the issues,” she said. She also focused on being authentic and true to herself, along with displaying confidence even when she didn’t feel confident on the inside.

Stewart also knows what the oil and gas sector needs to do to thrive in the future.

“Our industry must adopt flexible workplace policies to keep and retain women,” she said. “Many women enter our industry but opt out once they start a family due to the inflexibility. Who cares where you work, or what hours you work, as long as you get your work done and you are a collaborative and effective colleague?”

In her current position in Washington, Stewart sees firsthand how effective policy and advocacy on Capitol Hill can result in real, positive developments for the oil and gas industry despite the increasing hostility and adverse regulatory environment. One of her main takeaways is the need to “depoliticize energy.”

“Renewables and oil and natural gas are an ‘AND’—not an ‘OR’,” she said. “We need both to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy.”

Check out the rest of Hart Energy's 2024 Women in Energy here.