Adam MacLuckie and Huyen Luong faced a “first-of-its-kind” scenario when they were selected co-chairs of the Shell US Legal Diversity Equity and Inclusion Council.
Shell US lawyers were returning to offices after nearly two years of remote work as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The country was reeling from the video-recorded murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer. And people were looking at DEI initiatives with increasing apprehension.
So the duo slapped the slogan “Let’s Talk About It” on their program and met the moment head on.
“We believed that as long as we know each other as a community, that opens doors to seeing each other as individuals and treating everyone with respect and inclusion,” Luong recently told The Texas Lawbook.
What followed were increased participation in DEI events and meaningful two-way communication between the company and employees, according to MacLuckie, Luong and their Shell colleagues who nominated them for the 2025 Houston Corporate Counsel Award for Achievement in Diversity and Inclusion. For their two-year term co-chairing the Shell DEI council in 2022 and 2023, the judges unanimously selected MacLuckie and Luong to receive the award.
“I’m a sucker for courageous people and organizations, and Shell is being courageous on the DE&I front when others aren’t, which makes me proud to be here,” MacLuckie said.
Behind their success as DEI leaders are two unique journeys that reveal how MacLuckie and Luong came to embrace allyship and champion inclusion.
Steering Toward Advocacy
Luong was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — commonly known as Saigon — about five years after the Vietnam War ended. Her father struggled to find work in the post-war country and was often at odds with law enforcement. Seeing no viable future, he fled the country when Luong was just one year old. With the help of a Lutheran church group, her father wound up in a small town about 50 miles north of Philadelphia.
Shortly after, Luong’s mother also attempted to flee with her in tow. But each escape was foiled. Authorities caught them and even once incarcerated the mother and daughter.
For 10 years, Luong and her mother were apart from her father. Luong’s only connection with her father was through an occasional letter, some photographs and a little money from his earnings in the U.S.
Luong and her mother had very few material things in Vietnam. At home, she had just a bed and a small shower area. The school she attended lacked a functioning bathroom.
“There was always an implicit understanding that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted because we simply couldn’t afford it,” Luong said.
But her life was full, she said. Surrounded by cousins, aunts and uncles, Luong was joyful and loved her childhood.
At age 11, Luong and her mother were reunited with her father in the U.S. English was her second language and she often filled the role of translator for her parents.
Her father found work in manufacturing and her mother sewed firemen’s uniforms. Their incomes were modest, but they appreciated what they had and didn’t want for much, Luong said. They saved for retirement and, when the time came, they were able to afford Luong’s college education.
Luong initially pursued a career in science. She graduated from the University of Rochester with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and took a job as a research scientist at the University of Texas. She later moved to a biotech company, where she realized that, although she loved science, research alone wasn’t her passion.
Luong was inspired to pursue a legal career after the biotech company she worked for was acquired by a larger firm. The new parent company brought in an in-house patent lawyer, who introduced her to a legal profession that made use of her scientific background.
Luong graduated from SMU Dedman School of Law in 2009 and went to work for Norton Rose Fulbright, then called Fulbright & Jaworski. In 2012, she left to go in-house for Shell, where she is legal counsel in the intellectual property group.
Now, as a lawyer, Luong said she looks back on her life and recognizes subtle signs steering her toward advocacy.
“Watching my parents struggle to navigate systems without proper guidance or representation had planted seeds of interest in advocacy and the power of legal knowledge that I wasn’t fully aware of until this career opportunity presented itself,” she said.
When DEI Is Personal
MacLuckie grew up in a one-stoplight town in the middle of Pennsylvania’s “Amish Country.” His parents, a salesman and a nurse, taught him many great values, he said, including being accepting of others’ differences and living in service of others.
As a kid, MacLuckie took up wrestling, where he found an additional father figure in Coach Larry Boggs.
“Coach Boggs truly changed the course of my life — not just my career path,” MacLuckie said.
Boggs, a Black man in mostly white rural Pennsylvania, became one of the most influential people in MacLuckie’s life and his influence set MacLuckie on a path to allyship.
MacLuckie, like Luong, also had a prior career before becoming an attorney. He graduated in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh. As a sales engineer in Houston, MacLuckie thought being a lawyer would require less travel and garner a more stable income. He began taking evening classes at the University of Houston Law Center and graduated in 2003.
MacLuckie was working at then-Fulbright & Jaworski representing Shell when he was approached about a job opening in the company. His oldest of three children was a toddler at the time, and MacLuckie decided to interview for the job in hopes that it would afford him more family time. He is now managing counsel for crude and products in Shell USA’s trading organization.
MacLuckie’s path to allyship, with the early influence of Coach Boggs, grew more personal with his kids.
“I am the exceedingly proud parent of two gay children (Nick and Gabby – and equally proud of my straight son, Jake),” MacLuckie said.
With Boggs as a mentor to this day and having two gay children, MacLuckie said it is “impossible” not to take racial and LGBTQ+ issues personally. Caring about DEI “is personal” to MacLuckie.
“Need To Be An Ally”
Luong and MacLuckie learned of their co-chair nominations a few months before their term began in 2022. They decided that one of their first initiatives would be commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which falls on the third Monday of January each year. There was no pre-standing tradition for the holiday. And creating content directly wasn’t an expectation of their co-chair rules. But the planning would fall to someone over the Christmas and New Year holidays, which they didn’t think was fair to pass on to anyone else. So, they did it themselves.
“It was very well received, which reinforced that sometimes you just need to take action rather than waiting for perfect conditions,” Luong said.
Coming into the role, MacLuckie felt “like the temperature in the room” had gone up since he started working at Shell 18 years ago, and people were divided on DEI efforts. He and Luong decided to concentrate their work on bringing the dividing walls down and making people comfortable with dialogue, hence the “Let’s Talk About It” campaign.
The duo wanted to take the existing program, which was concentrated on building awareness through a singular flow of information in which employees received information, into a two-way conversation that also helped rebuild a sense of community that was lost during the remote, Covid era.
Their programming built trust, increased engagement, removed participation barriers and encouraged allyship, said legal counsel Abigail Farmer and senior legal counsel Joel Talley, who nominated Luong and MacLuckie. They introduced interactive workshops, panel discussions, hybrid events and multi-part series “that allowed for deeper exploration of topics,” Farmer and Talley said.
Luong and MacLuckie “improved upon the program’s existing initiatives to focus on accessible content and recreating a community that had been fractured due to an extended work-from-home period,” their colleagues said. “This was no easy feat.”
Luong and MacLuckie left behind a “sustainable framework for continued engagement,” Farmer and Talley added.
MacLuckie and Luong each said co-chairing the DEI program ranked among their most notable success stories at Shell.
Their approaches to DEI efforts include extending grace to others who are trying. There isn’t a “right” way of doing DEI efforts, Luong said. And MacLuckie bucks a “take all or nothing” approach.
“Everyone should have the latitude to move at their own pace, and if their heart and actions are in the right place, nobody should be burned at the stake for not living up to the standards of others or inadvertently using the wrong words,” MacLuckie said. “That approach to DE&I just puts people on their heels and hurts the cause.”
“People should feel comfortable being curious without fearing they’ll be judged,” Luong added.
For Luong, DEI efforts have given her new perspective on her childhood in poverty.
“I believe DEI efforts should help people reflect on where they are and the privileges that each of us have in many different ways,” she said. “For instance, even though I grew up quite poor … I can look back and recognize I’ve had many privileges. There are others who have less than me so I need to be an ally where I can.”
Fun Facts: Huyen Luong
- Favorite book: I used to love to read before I became a lawyer. Now that I’m surrounded by words all day — reading them, creating them — and being a mom to a 5-year-old, I haven’t had the luxury of time to sit down and enjoy a book in a long time. When I do get to read, it’s usually romantic novels on vacation, or I’m reading bedtime stories with my son. With that said, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein has touched me in a very unexpected way. It has a deep message about self-acceptance that’s particularly moving to me at this stage of my life. Reading it as an adult, I find layers of meaning about independence, relationships and personal growth that resonate with my own journey.
- Favorite movie or TV show: The shows at the top of my list are mainly on Apple TV — Foundation, For All Mankind, and Severance. What I love about these series is how they explore real, complex issues, but through a science fiction lens. The cinematography and production values are just amazing, and the characters have genuine depth and complexity. I appreciate how these shows engage me intellectually while still being entertaining. The science fiction setting provides just enough distance from reality, which can sometimes be too depressing to watch directly. These shows allow me to think about important themes and ideas while still providing an escape.
- Hero in life and why: It may not be surprising that the answer is my parents. Their story comes full circle from my background. In post-war Vietnam, my father couldn’t find stable work and was often in trouble with the law. Seeing no viable path forward, he made the ultimate sacrifice of leaving his wife and infant child to journey to an unknown country, hoping to create a better future for us — which he ultimately did. My mother’s heroism shows in how she managed as a single parent for 10 years in Vietnam, and then started over at 41 in America, learning a new language and culture while ensuring my success. Together, they embodied sacrifice, resilience, and unwavering determination. Despite limited formal education and modest incomes, they created opportunities for me that they never had themselves. Their journey from refugees to stable, retired Americans who can now enjoy the fruits of their labor represents everything I aspire to honor through my own work and life choices. Major honorable mention is my husband. His perseverance and drive to do the right thing the right way is a major motivator in my life.
Fun Facts: Adam MacLuckie
- Favorite movie or TV show: As a diehard Philly sports fan, there can only be one answer to this question — Rocky. Any story about an overachieving, unappreciated underdog who proves everyone wrong with humility is about as good as it gets. The movie resonates with Philly so much, in large part because it is such a working town, arguably not as glamorous as other northeastern cities like NY, DC or Boston, even though it’s the birthplace of America, but I digress. Philly likes being unappreciated — it’s part of the fabric of the city. Interestingly, Houston shares some of the same characteristics as Philly — an unappreciated overachieving working town, and maybe not as “cool” as Austin or Dallas, but I’ll take Houston over any other city in Texas — it’s home.
- Favorite musician or band: I can’t possibly just say one artist, but two of my absolute favorites are the Black Crowes and Teddy Pendergrass, who also happens to be the greatest baritone of any genre of music, and yes, he’s a Philly guy.
- Hero in life and why: Easiest question of the day — my wife, Hollie. I’m a restless person by nature and she’s the only person in my life who puts me at ease. She’s the kindest, smartest all-around best person on the planet, and in the immortal words of Teddy Pendergrass, she’s my greatest inspiration. When I’m near Hollie, I feel like I’m closer to God, and I’m the luckiest guy in the world having her as my wife of almost 29 years.