Guus Kessler

Who was Guus Kessler?

Jean Baptiste August "Guus" Kessler Jr. was a Dutch industrialist. Kessler also played tennis for the Netherlands in the 1906 Olympics in Athens, losing his first match to future Olympic champion Max Decugis.

Kessler was born in a very wealthy family from The Hague, the second son of six children. His father Jean Baptiste August Kessler was the first director of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Petroleum Maatschappij, now named Royal Dutch Shell. Guus studied engineering at Delft University.

Both Guus and his older brother Geldolph Adriaan Kessler were considered the "crown princes" of the Royal Dutch, but after their father died unexpectedly they had to work under their father's domineering successor, Henri Deterding. Dolf eventually left, at the urging of his fiance, and helped create and lead the Dutch steel company Hoogovens. Guus, by contrast, seemed to get along better with Deterding. "The brothers were also strong willed but only Guus, the younger son, succeeded in controlling his emotions and avoiding coming into conflict with Deterding, in order to reach his ultimate goal," wrote Joost Junker and Jan Luiten van Zandem in their history of the company. The two brothers, as leading figures in two major Dutch business concerns, at one point formed a joint venture between the Hoogovens and Royal Dutch Shell to combat a threat to the oil business by IG Farben. Guus, who became a director of Royal Dutch in 1923, was instrumental in leading Shell into the petroleum-based chemicals business.