Stephen Chazen Biography and Net Worth

Stephen Chazen is the chairman, president, and CEO of Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation. In March 2020, he was elected to Occidental Petroleum’s board of directors.

Chazen’s career includes 30 years of leadership experience across the oil and gas industry. Before founding Magnolia in 2018, he served as Occidental’s president and CEO from 2011 to 2016.

Chazen joined Occidental, the fourth-largest oil producer in the United States, in 1994, quickly climbing the ranks from executive vice president of corporate development to CFO, from senior executive vice president to COO, and finally to CEO and president.

Under Chazen’s leadership, Occidental grew from $1.6 billion in profits in 2010 to $3.4 billion in 2011, making him the largest value-generation business leader in southern California at the time. 

Prior to joining Occidental, Chazen worked as managing director of corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions for Merrill Lynch. From 1977 to 1982, he worked at the Columbia Gas Development Corporation as the director of project evaluation and reservoir engineering. He launched his oil and gas career in 1973, working at the Northrop Corporation as a lab manager at the Johnson Space Center. 

Chazen advises numerous organizations, having served as board chair for the American Petroleum Institute and the Catalina Island Conservancy. In 2018, he joined the University of Houston System Board of Regents, and he also sits on the advisory board of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, the Houston Methodist Institute for Academic Medicine, the Williams Companies, and the National Park Foundation. 

Chazen earned his bachelor’s degree in geology from Rutgers College, his master’s degree in finance from the University of Houston, and his Ph.D. in geology from Michigan State University.