Michelle Boit is an award winning Petroleum Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the oil and gas industry.

She is the Founder and CEO of Michelle Boit Foundation, a platform where she mentors young engineers and link them to opportunities.

Michelle holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Chemical Engineering from Texas Tech University and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Business Administration, Management and Operations from the University of Texas at Dallas.

She serves as the Board Chair of Kenyatta University SPE Chapter and Chair of the Board of Directors of Society of Petroleum Engineers International. 

She has previously worked for BP PLC as a Production Engineer. In 2014, she relocated back to Kenya and worked for Tullow Oil as a Senior Production Engineer, becoming the first African – Petroleum Engineer. She also worked as Wells Operations Engineer at Glencore (Chad). 

“One of the challenges of working in the oil and gas industry is the environment. It entails working in the field and some environments are quite harsh. Second, supervising men can be tough as some still hold the attitude that a woman can’t tell them anything. There are instances where I have been in the field supervising jobs that have about 100 men and some of them would address their male colleagues assuming they are supervisors and not me, which can be quite discouraging,” said Eng Boit.

Credit: Women Power Africa