Chief Strategy Officer — Energy-Services Division

The mandate

A privately held energy-services group has produced successive strategy cycles with attractive choices but weak resource consequences. Priorities remain in plans after funding and capacity move elsewhere, while business units interpret enterprise themes to support existing agendas. Sharper decisions are now required because cash, specialist talent and leadership attention cannot cover every commitment.

The Chief Strategy Officer will operate across a US$34,550 million asset and trading perimeter and influence approximately 650 employees and material partners. The portfolio combines service lines, technologies, geographic markets and long-cycle customer relationships with different capital intensity and cycle exposure. The role must connect market perspective to portfolio ownership, annual planning, project recovery and corporate development without becoming an internal presentation team.

Reporting to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive committee sponsor, the CSO will run the enterprise choice process and make assumptions transparent. Operating executives keep P&L accountability; the strategy leader ensures that enterprise decisions are explicit, funded and revisited when evidence changes.

Why this seat is open

The role was not in the authorised hiring calendar. An urgent need emerged when major-project recovery exposed the absence of a single owner connecting strategic priorities, resource allocation and execution consequences. Interim coverage maintains planning activity but cannot arbitrate trade-offs. The board intends a qualified-shortlist-to-offer process of four to six weeks.

What you will own

• Reconstruct the enterprise portfolio by market attractiveness, competitive right to win, cash profile, capital need, capability demand and downside exposure.
• Reduce the strategy to a limited set of funded choices, identifying activities that must stop, shrink, partner or exit to release resources.
• Integrate the major-project recovery into enterprise planning, showing how schedule, cost and benefit scenarios alter liquidity and optional investments.
• Build a common fact base for market, competitor, customer and technology assumptions, with named owners and dates for evidence refresh.
• Design decision papers around alternatives, reversibility, trigger points and resource consequences rather than a single recommended case.
• Connect strategic choices to budget, leadership objectives, talent moves and portfolio gates so that unfunded priorities cannot persist through language alone.
• Lead targeted partnerships, acquisitions or divestments where ownership is central to the choice, while maintaining clear accountability with finance and corporate development.
• Create a small strategy team capable of commercial analysis, portfolio modelling and executive challenge without reproducing business-unit planning work.

The first 12 months

During the first 45 days, map every declared priority to current capital, people, milestones and accountable executive. Identify contradictions, double-counted benefits and projects surviving without a strategic rationale. Review the major recovery case against customer obligations, cash exposure and realistic capacity. Give the chief executive an initial list of decisions that cannot wait for the annual cycle.

By day 100, facilitate an executive choice process that results in no more than five enterprise priorities, each with a funded path and stop list. Publish assumptions and trigger points so that commodity, customer or project evidence can change the answer without reopening the entire strategy.

Months four through eight should embed those choices in budget and talent allocation. Support the recovery sponsor at capital gates, challenge benefits that rely on unchanged behaviour, and conclude at least one partnership or portfolio action where internal ownership is no longer preferred. Remove reports that track activity without decision relevance.

At the first anniversary, the board should see fewer priorities, explicit trade-offs and a financed execution path. Strategy, capital and operating forecasts must reconcile for three successive quarters, while the next planning cycle starts from evidence on existing choices rather than a fresh catalogue of ambitions.

What the board will measure

• Every enterprise priority mapped to capital, critical roles, accountable sponsor, milestones and a documented stop list within 100 days.
• At least 15% of previously committed discretionary resources released from activities outside the chosen portfolio and reassigned or preserved.
• Major-project recovery decisions supported by scenario ranges and trigger points, with cost and benefit forecast variance below 10%.
• Closure of three material portfolio choices through investment, partnership, disposal, containment or evidenced termination.
• Strategy, budget and operating forecasts reconciled for three consecutive quarters without unowned resource gaps.
• Executive stakeholders reporting clearer decisions and fewer reopened trade-offs, evidenced through governance records rather than survey sentiment alone.

The person

You are a Chief Strategy Officer, EVP Strategy or Corporate Development Head with 22–28 years in energy, oilfield or industrial services, engineering, utilities, chemicals or adjacent markets. You have converted strategy into capital and resource choices during a recovery, downturn or portfolio transition. Your record includes stopping attractive initiatives to protect a more important path.

Applicants need responsibility for at least US$20,050 million in P&L, book, budget or accountable portfolio and leadership of 450 or more people. You can combine market judgement, portfolio economics, scenario modelling and executive facilitation. Pure planning experience without direct resource consequences does not meet the threshold.

The role is hybrid and anchored in Houston, with international relocation supported. Availability for executive and operating reviews in person is expected.

Compensation and terms

The expected package is US$320,000–420,000 base plus annual incentive. Final positioning will reflect enterprise responsibility, recovery experience and current mix. A transition of up to six months may be accommodated if early participation in defined strategy decisions can be arranged appropriately.

Confidentiality

The privately held group, owners, customers, project recovery and portfolio alternatives remain unnamed. Further information is conditional on qualification, reciprocal interest and formal confidentiality.