James Joseph Mulva
Former ConocoPhillips chairman and CEO; born Oshkosh, raised in De Pere; Mulva Cultural Center philanthropist
Net worth
$260 million
December 31, 2012
About
James Joseph Mulva led ConocoPhillips as chairman and chief executive through the years when the combined oil major became one of the world’s largest independent producers, then retired when the company split in 2012.
The hometown mark is De Pere: a $100 million cultural center on Broadway and another multimillion-dollar gift to a local school and parish hall, given with his wife, Miriam.
He was born in Oshkosh on June 19, 1946, and moved to De Pere as a boy. He graduated from De Pere High School, then studied at the University of Texas on a Navy ROTC scholarship, earning a bachelor’s degree and an MBA in finance at the McCombs School. After serving as a Navy officer, he and Miriam—who had grown up in West De Pere—married at St. Mary’s in De Pere in 1969 and spent early married years on his commission in Bahrain and Cleveland. His father, James Sr., a De Pere banker and flight instructor who had once washed planes for Steve Wittman in Oshkosh, put him in airplanes at eleven and died testing a plane at Nicolet Airport on December 4, 1976.
Mulva joined Phillips Petroleum in 1973, rose to chief financial officer and president, and helped steer the 2002 merger with Conoco. He chaired and ran ConocoPhillips until 2012. USA Today reported more than $260 million in 2012 compensation, retirement, and deferred pay—a paycheck figure, not a published personal fortune. With Miriam he funded the Mulva Cultural Center, a 75,000-square-foot limestone-and-glass complex that opened in December 2023 with Beatles material in the first gallery, and about $27 million for a Notre Dame school and parish hall in De Pere. They still call the Fox River city home.
Notable facts
Chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips until retiring in 2012, after rising through Phillips Petroleum from a 1973 start and the 2002 Conoco merger.
With Miriam Mulva, funded the roughly $100 million Mulva Cultural Center in De Pere (opened December 2023) and about $27 million for a Notre Dame school and parish hall.
Born in Oshkosh on June 19, 1946, raised in De Pere, De Pere High School graduate; married Miriam at St. Mary’s, De Pere, in 1969 after Navy ROTC study at the University of Texas.
What questions can this profile answer
- What makes James Joseph Mulva notable?
- James Joseph Mulva led ConocoPhillips as chairman and chief executive through the years when the combined oil major became one of the world’s largest independent producers, then retired when the company split in 2012. The hometown mark is De Pere: a $100 million cultural center on Broadway and another…
- What is James Joseph Mulva's estimated net worth?
- James Joseph Mulva's estimated net worth is $260 million as of 2012-12-31.