Developing a diverse pipeline of talent to drive future value in an international oil & gas company

Challenge

Our client is a market-leading Oil & Gas exploration and production company. The organization was formed within the last decade through multiple mergers and acquisitions, resulting in them being a lean operation that had not previously invested much in their talent strategy.

In line with transitioning into a more mature operating model, they wanted a partner who could help them take a more intentional approach towards talent management and succession. The newly appointed CHRO had identified the need to create greater transparency and apply a more rigorous approach to succession planning at the ExCo level, given these critical roles will drive the next phase of their growth.

They had identified 30 high-potential leaders as potential successors and wanted to better understand their potential for leadership roles and development required to transition.

Solution

First, we designed a future-focused profile of success to create a shared understanding of the skills and capabilities required to become a successful leader of their business. We interviewed key stakeholders from the Exec, Board and HR teams to create clarity and consistency around what it takes to be an exceptional leader given their strategy and context.

Using our market-leading methodology, we assessed an initial cohort of leaders against the success profile to provide robust insights into their leadership strengths, development areas, appetite and potential for ExCo roles. We held group briefing sessions with the participants, their line managers and executive sponsors to build engagement and set clear expectations about the purpose of the process and their roles within it.

The assessments were a deeply developmental experience for the leaders, with the report and feedback session providing focus areas for subsequent development to have maximum impact.

We presented group insights to the CEO and CHRO to discuss the implications for their talent pipeline and succession decisions, including recommendations for how to accelerate identified successors’ development and where external talent might be required to fill gaps.

A second cohort was assessed in 2022 and 18 months after the first cohort’s assessments, we gathered 360 feedback on the leaders to provide further insights into their development and assess progression towards readiness for their target succession role.