CIO – Enterprise Platforms — Energy-Services Division

The mandate

An energy-services division has accumulated regional finance, workforce, procurement, customer and data platforms through acquisitions and local investment. Those systems enabled growth but now carry duplicated licences, inconsistent controls and costly interfaces. Commodity-cycle repositioning has made the trade-off unavoidable: standardise enough to release cash and improve assurance, while keeping field operations, crews and customers functioning through migration.

The CIO will own enterprise platforms across an operated asset and trading perimeter of approximately US$38,900 million. The technology ecosystem comprises about 1,975 employees and material partners, including regional IT teams, product owners, cyber specialists, architects, service providers and change resources. The role is broader than an applications tower; it includes service economics, architecture, data, cyber accountability and business adoption.

Houston is the working base, with the appointee reporting to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive committee sponsor. Business leaders retain process ownership, but the CIO will have authority over platform standards, technology investment, major vendors and leadership appointments. Success requires commercial resolve as well as technical judgement because exceptions often protect local incentives more than genuine operating need.

Why this seat is open

This is a planned new appointment in an approved operating model. Regional technology heads continue to run current services, yet no single executive can arbitrate enterprise standards against local requirements or own the complete cost base. The organisation is allowing four to six months to select a leader before the next capital and talent cycle; no incumbent is being displaced.

What you will own

• Establish a verified baseline of platform cost, technical debt, interfaces, control gaps, utilisation and contractual commitments across every region.
• Decide the target landscape for finance, supply chain, workforce, customer, asset-support and data capabilities, naming systems to retain, converge, retire or temporarily contain.
• Create an exception regime that recognises regulatory and field-critical differences but prices every deviation and gives it an expiry or review date.
• Protect operational continuity through migration, with rehearsed cutovers, data reconciliation, rollback conditions and clear accountability between technology and process owners.
• Consolidate strategic suppliers, renegotiate consumption and service terms, and remove shelfware without shifting hidden cost into contractors or local budgets.
• Integrate identity, access, segregation of duties, vulnerability management, recovery and data controls into platform design rather than retrofitting assurance after deployment.
• Recast the 1,975-person ecosystem around product, platform and service accountability; address duplicated leadership while retaining scarce integration, cyber and field-technology capability.
• Publish enterprise-platform economics that reconcile capital, operating cost, vendor commitments, adoption, service performance and benefit realisation.

The first 12 months

The first 90 days should establish one credible inventory and halt non-essential commitments that would deepen fragmentation. Visit representative field and regional operations to distinguish legitimate resilience needs from historical preference. Agree with executive sponsors the principles for global core, regional configuration and temporary exception, together with service thresholds that no migration may breach.

By month six, select the first convergence waves based on value, control exposure and readiness rather than political ease. Complete commercial action on the largest duplicated vendors, appoint accountable platform leaders and prove data reconciliation on a contained migration. Every programme should have a business adoption owner and a benefit baseline approved before funding.

By month nine, retire the first material legacy platforms and demonstrate that standard processes are being used, not merely technically available. Resolve repeated exceptions at executive level. Move technology reporting from project milestones to end-to-end service, adoption, control and economic outcomes.

At the first anniversary, the board should see lower run cost, fewer high-risk control variants and a funded multi-year sequence for the remaining estate. Service reliability must remain stable through the change, and local leaders should understand both the value of the standard and the cost of departure.

What the board will measure

• A complete platform and contract baseline covering at least 95% of spend within 100 days.
• Annualised run-cost reduction of 12% without deterioration beyond agreed service thresholds or transfer of expense to business units.
• Retirement or committed decommissioning of at least 20% of duplicative applications in the first approved waves.
• Ninety-five per cent completion of priority access and control remediation by board-agreed dates, independently tested.
• Adoption above 85% for migrated user populations within 90 days of cutover, measured through actual process use.
• Critical-service availability maintained at or above 99.9%, with no unreconciled material data loss or untested recovery dependency.

The person

You are a CIO, Enterprise Applications Head or Regional Technology Director with 22–28 years across energy, industrial services, engineering, utilities or another distributed operational business. You have simplified a post-acquisition or regionally fragmented estate and can quantify both the technology economics and the effect on users. Experience limited to delivering one platform is insufficient.

The scale threshold is ownership of at least US$22,550 million in P&L, book, budget or accountable portfolio and leadership of 1,375 or more employees. You have governed enterprise service, cyber, architecture and data alongside applications. You are willing to retire systems, challenge executive exceptions and pause a cutover when reconciliation or operational readiness is weak.

This is an onsite Houston role with international relocation available. Regular engagement with operating sites and regional leaders is expected; it is not designed for permanent remote leadership.

Compensation and terms

The expected package is US$430,000–575,000 base plus annual incentive and equity, calibrated to final responsibility and current mix. Equity follows customary vesting, performance and conduct provisions. A notice period up to six months may be accommodated around programme and leadership continuity.

Confidentiality

The group, acquired entities, technology estate, vendors and control findings are deliberately anonymised. Identifying material will be supplied only after mutual relevance, diligence and confidentiality have been established.