2024 GMiS Luminaries

Education:  Rising Latino Leaders, Southern Methodist University; Product Manager, Dow Marketing University; Bachelors in Chemical Engineering, Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia)

Adriana Velasquez has earned a reputation for a “can do” attitude that’s empowered her to make tremendous contributions at Shell USA, Inc. She understands that collaboration hinges not only on what is delivered, but how it’s delivered, and colleagues describe Adriana as an exceptional professional who has combined technical and interpersonal skills to build a well-earned reputation for strong delivery and difference making.

Despite being the most junior member of the Americas Lubricants Supply Chain leadership team, Adriana actively focuses on financial impacts while demonstrating care for people at all levels of  the organization.  She doesn’t hold back with candid yet constructive  input that helps her team, and the business at large, to improve. 

Adriana’s areas of responsibility include important aspects of the Heavy Duty Engine Oils and Transmission Fluids businesses, which combined represent $1.6 billion in revenue in the Americas.  She’s also the regional focal point for Product Management with overall accountability for all product lines, which means she leads the managers in other offices to ensure the team has visibility and recognition for their work.

Looking for new ways to get involved, Adriana joined – and soon after chaired – the Shell Education committee, where she helped establish a new platform for training in the industry. She also joined the Drainage Division and the Power and Communications Division, where she made sure to represent the industry first versus her own interests or specific company agendas. In these roles, she built strong relationships and earned the respect of industry veterans. In large committees it can  be difficult to move things quickly, but Adriana found ways to keep meetings focused and made sure agendas moved along while being attentive to members’ inputs. 

As a member of the Drainage Division in particular, she was instrumental in developing a new manual and several technical documents while also serving as Marketing Chair.  In the Power and Communications Division, she helped clarify the functionalities of polymers through key updates of standards and technical documents still in use today.  Elected Vice Chair, she was responsible for the division’s finances, ensuring it had a clear budget and completed activities by staying connected and supporting subcommittee leads in their projects. 

Adriana remains an active volunteer both within and outside of Shell.  She founded the DEI Council for Polymers with Shell at the Pittsburgh plant, then later in the chemicals business she transformed their seven-person DEI Council into a strongly developed, mission, vision, and goals-driven organization with nearly 20 members that she recruited. She now serves as a subcommittee lead for the Representation and Accountability Workstream of the Shell USA DEI Council. Since  joining Shell, she has remained active with Great Minds in STEM, including serving on the HENAAC Selection Committee every year since 2012.