Lane Riggs

Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President Valero Energy Corporation

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

R. Lane Riggs is Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President of Valero Energy Corporation, the San Antonio-headquartered refiner that operates one of the largest independent refining systems in the world alongside a substantial renewable diesel and ethanol business. He is a chemical engineer who has spent his entire executive career inside the company, starting as a process engineer at the McKee refinery in 1989 and working through roughly ten successive positions in refining operations, supply optimisation, feedstock trading and planning before reaching the top job in June 2023. He added the chairmanship at the close of 2024 when Executive Chairman Joseph W. Gorder retired, and he signs Valero’s annual report as its principal executive officer.

Career Highlights

• Elected Chief Executive Officer and President of Valero, and a member of its board, effective as of the close of business on June 30, 2023.
• Elected to the additional position of Chairman of the Board effective as of the close of business on December 31, 2024, succeeding retiring Executive Chairman Joseph W. Gorder.
• Served as President and Chief Operating Officer from January 23, 2020, and before that as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer from January 1, 2018.
• Ran Valero’s refining network for most of a decade, as Senior Vice President Refining Operations from 2011 and Executive Vice President Refining Operations and Engineering from 2014.
• Held earlier leadership positions across supply optimisation, crude and feedstock supply and trading, and refinery planning and economics.
• Served on the board of directors of Valero Energy Partners GP LLC, general partner of Valero’s former midstream master limited partnership, from 2014 to 2019.

Professional Journey

Riggs trained as a chemical engineer at the University of Oklahoma and later took an MBA with an emphasis in finance and economics at West Texas A&M University - a combination that maps neatly onto the two halves of his career, the first spent in plant engineering and operations and the second in the commercial and economic side of refining. Valero’s own account has him with the company since 1989, starting as a process engineer at the McKee refinery in the Texas panhandle.

The climb was unusually linear for a Fortune 500 chief executive. He moved from process engineering into general management as General Manager of Process Engineering, then into the commercial organisation as Director of Supply and Optimization and Vice President of Refinery Planning and Economics, before taking charge of Senior Vice President for Crude, Feedstock Supply and Trading. In 2011 he was made Senior Vice President of Refining Operations, and in 2014 Executive Vice President of Refining Operations and Engineering, putting the whole refining system under him.

The final approach to the chief executive’s office came in two steps. On January 1, 2018 he became Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and on January 23, 2020 he was named President and Chief Operating Officer, adding commercial operations and the renewables and logistics businesses to his remit. Valero’s board elected him Chief Executive Officer and President, and a director, effective as of the close of business on June 30, 2023, succeeding Joseph W. Gorder, who stayed on as Executive Chairman.

That transitional arrangement ended eighteen months later. Effective as of the close of business on December 31, 2024, the board elected Riggs to the additional position of Chairman on Gorder’s retirement, consolidating the chairman, chief executive and president roles in one person. He remains in all three as of Valero’s most recent annual report and proxy statement, and continues to sign the company’s filings as principal executive officer.

Education

University of Oklahoma

Bachelor of Science, Chemical Engineering

West Texas A&M University

Master of Business Administration, Finance and Economics