As the first female chief executive of one of Australia’s biggest oil and gas producers, Meg O’Neill has had a landmark year, pulling off a $63 billion mega-merger with BHP’s petroleum division and putting the world-scale company on the path to decarbonisation.

For all the detractors of the petroleum sector more broadly, O’Neill, named one of The Australian Financial Review Business People of the Year, is holding firm at the helm of what is now a global top-10 independent oil and gas company in a turbulent sector that has been thrown into the public glare due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the price crisis that is hammering consumers.