Now entering its second year, The Energy Executive 360 Newsletter is evolving from industry analysis into direct mentorship. Each week, a global energy CEO, executive, or industry leader from our growing network shares their personal insights, career lessons, and leadership advice for the next generation shaping the future of the energy system.
The Keys to Strategy Success (That Most Get Wrong in Energy)
Published 2 days ago • 7 min read
After 25 Years in Energy, Here’s What Strategy Actually Means, What Works & What Doesn’t
Waqar Khan is an energy technology and oilfield services executive with nearly three decades of experience across the global energy sector, spanning operations, commercial leadership, and large-scale project delivery.
He is currently the Managing Partner at Enertech Sccale Up, where he works with energy technology start-ups and operators to drive revenue growth and accelerate the adoption of new technologies across core energy workflows.
Previously, he spent over 25 years at Schlumberger (SLB), holding senior leadership roles including Director OFS Sales & Commercial for Europe, Vice President Sales & Commercial, and Head of Global Projects for Unconventional Resources. During this time, he led multi-billion-dollar portfolios, built integrated service offerings, and delivered strong commercial and strategic outcomes across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
His career combines deep operational expertise with commercial and strategic leadership, and in this newsletter, he distils the key lessons he has learned from building, executing, and leading strategy across the energy industry.
To get this newsletter directly into your inbox every Sunday, sign up to our network here...
“Strategy” can sometimes feel like a buzz word that gets thrown about in different contexts; its real impact diluted and its purpose often misunderstood.
Today, I will explain what is a strategy, what it isn’t, when should oil & gas businesses consider doing one, and what differentiates a good strategy from a bad one, separating the buzz from the reality, while highlighting what matters most.
Let’s first dig into what it isn’t… a strategy isn’t about regurgitating what a business already knows. If you ever feel there’s nothing new in your strategy then it isn’t really worth doing - you should consider a business plan instead.
Elements like discovery, novelty, and risk must form the core of the strategy, otherwise it is an elaborate exercise the outcome of which will likely be a well-articulated ‘justification’ to maintain the status-quo. That isn’t a strategy. It adds zero value. Never do it.
Execution, Alignment, and Organisational Reality
Second, a strategy should never be about putting fancy looking plans on paper without defining the path through execution. Execution mind set is critical for success, and this comes down to getting the right internal stakeholders on board early. Identifying who owns what, who adds most value and who makes what decisions is key in setting up the strategy team.
During my time in oilfield services from front line to corporate, I participated in several strategy development initiatives as well as lead a few myself. What I’ve learnt is that large organisations have a natural bias towards working in silos - aka the comfort zone. This is partly intentional and somewhat by design because large organisations need a well structured roles, responsibilities & reporting lines to operate efficiently whether that is within the functions of a business line or within the business lines of a geography. Having said that, these silos can sometimes stand as barriers in the way of cooperation and collaboration, leading to misalignment and eventually sub optimal results. From a customer stand point, it is completely invisible how the internal kitchens work; their interest is in being served a great meal. Same goes for any business.
Misaligned organisations tend to over-focus inwards, thus failing to identify white spaces across their portfolios and therefore do not capitalise enough on their existing strengths. When starting a strategy taking extra time to align stakeholders’ interests is well worth the effort. Creating space for internal debates (aka negotiations) typically around access to each other’s resources, sharing of unique customer/market/competitive intel and insights, accessing technical & domain support, and product & service costs and revenues requires an ongoing effort, attention & focus by the strategy owner. Done well it is guaranteed to pay off significant dividends over the long term. Keeping the strategy team aligned & inspired is a crucial skill that a strategy owner must possess and its importance cannot be stressed enough.
When Strategy Matters Most
So when should an oilfield business do a strategy? Good companies anticipate market changes faster than competitors — the best respond to them the fastest (fast doesn’t imply reckless; hence the term strategy).
Strategy is a structured process to rethink and realign business priorities by anticipating the future & acting on it. As markets evolve, strategies that are externally focused and elevate customer success will always win over those blinded by internal myopia. Oil and gas industry is notorious in that regard. Take digital for example.
Over the years I have seen all kinds of oil and gas companies paying millions to big-4 consulting firms to help develop their “digital strategies”. The tug of war kept going for a while - fancy PowerPoints, big promises, but largely under delivered and under achieved. This must not be seen as “normal.” Root cause, in my experience, is that strategies not born within core business tend to fail more. Outsourcing is the worst of the several bad options that exist out there. Personally I believe the onus falls on the business leaders. They need to educate themselves first by learning about the new technologies and finding where they add value to their core business, and not rely on IT department, fancy consultants, or any other function or role within their organisation as they say to “make it happen”. It does not work.
The same is true today for AI. If you are a business leader or someone working on AI strategy my recommendation is to make sure your knowledge of AI goes deep enough so you can make the right business decisions yourself for your business that you must then own. This is also the vision behind EnerTech Scale Up. We are capitalising on what we’ve learnt over decades to create pathways for value. Instead of a generic “do it all” mantra, we act as the bridge between tech start-ups and the specific business problem within the core workflow of the customer that the technology is designed and engineered to solve. We advocate business leaders to get directly involved & own the outcomes and the impacts.
From Framework to Execution
So what does the typical framework of a strategy look like? You should start by defining the core purpose, values & beliefs that underpin your business, lay out the why, the novel insights that drive your purpose going forward & why is now the right time to rethink and realign? These questions are fundamental, and answers should be clear and explainable. Then, define your top assumptions & risks. Confronting your worst case scenario head on forces you to think “what could go wrong”. This de-risks your strategy and improves its probability of success. Far too many strategies fail because leaders focus too much on selling their vision, and too little on tackling the risks.
Lastly the success metrics, and how to set them? Unless you are a start up you’ll have an ongoing customer base, competition, market share, revenue and profits. Depending on the ultimate driver or drivers behind your strategy ie to gain market share, drive profitability through prioritisation, invest into new products, or grow into new markets, or a combination of these, setting clear & measurable goals ensures you stay on track. During my time in oilfields services we experienced the changing market landscape during & post covid. Not only the core activity was declining, we could anticipate a lower investment profile into oil and gas projects especially across Europe over the coming years. That said, the demand outlook for energy remained quite resilient. We first needed to protect the profitability to sustain our core businesses and we did that by prioritising key markets with a positive investment outlook. In line with the growing energy demand and the transition imperative we looked beyond the existing portfolio into new markets such as enhanced geothermal in Germany, lithium extraction in Netherlands, offshore deep water gas across the Black Sea and Mediterranean, and Carbon Capture & Storage with Blue & Green H2 in the UK. Lastly we deployed digitally-connected-domains and domain-enabled-AI as key differentiating levers, which became our winning formula.
Oil and Gas Markets reward early movers. Followers come later into price wars driven by procurement. The window in between is where strategy delivers maximum value. A bold, customer-first strategy executed with agility can outperform both competitors and the market.
Where Strategy Actually Succeeds
Finally a few words about the metrics - first and foremost they should be based on your customers’ success, and second, they should reflect your organisation’s internal KPIs, reporting & incentives. This is called hard wiring. The litmus test is when KPIs are embedded into the roles & job descriptions of key individuals. This is the toughest to achieve and requires alignment with leadership and HR to ensure incentives drive execution.
Real Excellence is in flawless execution. That requires not just KPIs, but full organisational commitment — from front lines to executives — all aligned behind the same vision, values, and purpose. That’s when real magic happens.
You can say that the real success of a strategy hinges on people and therefore delivering an effective message, in an inclusive spirit, by leaders who inspire and lead by example remains paramount. Never underestimate the power of a message well delivered.
Key Lessons for Future Energy Leaders:
1. Don’t confuse activity with strategy If a company is just repeating what it already knows, that’s not strategy. Train yourself to look for what’s new, what’s uncertain, and where the real risk lies — that’s where the real thinking happens.
2. Learn how execution actually works Strategy isn’t just ideas — it’s who owns what, how decisions get made, and how things actually move forward internally. The sooner you understand this, the faster you stand out.
3. Build commercial + technical awareness early Whether it’s digital or AI, don’t rely on “someone else” to understand it. The people who progress fastest are those who connect technology to real business problems.
4. Pay attention to alignment, not just ideas The biggest failures don’t come from bad ideas — they come from teams not being aligned. Watch how different functions interact, where friction exists, and how decisions get blocked or pushed through.
To receive this newsletter into your inbox every Sunday, sign up to our TEE360 Future Energy Leaders Network below:
Now entering its second year, The Energy Executive 360 Newsletter is evolving from industry analysis into direct mentorship. Each week, a global energy CEO, executive, or industry leader from our growing network shares their personal insights, career lessons, and leadership advice for the next generation shaping the future of the energy system.
