Haavard Oestensen
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Haavard Oestensen’s early career was marked by traveling around the world to deploy software for hydrocarbon accounting and production reporting. “As someone who graduated with a software engineering degree in Norway—with no plans of going into O&G—I remember finding it surreal to helicopter into a large new upstream installation offshore Nigeria,” he says. “I was there to help install a part of the cargo loading solution and played a small but still important role in getting the export operation going. It was my first offshore visit, and the sheer scale of that operation has left an appreciation for the momentous nature of some of these industry projects. Since then, I’ve visited many remote and complex sites, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget that one.”
How have you exercised leadership to help shape your company?
As Chief Commercial Officer, I am in charge of our global commercial operations. As I took this role, it came with a mandate to restructure our commercial ways of working across the company’s business lines globally, including defining all necessary roles, mandates and metrics to ensure our continued success. This was a challenge, but I am proud to say that we have a global organization that delivers on sales, marketing, partnerships and alliances, and customer transformation across the globe. Getting the organizational design right, along with hiring the critical L2 team, and helping them structure their respective teams has been essential. This happening in parallel with delivering on our high-growth demands makes for an interesting workday.
Which transformations do you think the industry must undertake for it to thrive in the future?
I have the benefit of working in an organization that is enabling some of the major shifts in how the industry operates through holistic digital solutions that are set to change the way industries work. Over the past 10 years, there has been a lot of noise and discussion related to data capture, instrumentations and sensors as the Industrial Internet-of-Things and cloud adoption have represented major investments across industry. Now we see the rise of Generative AI as another disruptive force that purports to make a huge dent in industry operating models. I believe that, while capturing and putting data in the cloud, data lakes and other structures can be a good thing, we see a trend where companies are seeking better understanding of how this leads to direct value.
What advice would you give other young professionals?
Try to avoid too many distractions. There’s an art to staying focused and disciplined over time, and to establish some consistency in your work routines. Over time, I’ve myself have taken an approach of choosing to do certain things and doing them well, rather than immediately jumping on the “next thing.” This is not to say that you become ignorant of tectonic shifts that may happen—you need to look out for those and pivot your direction—but consistency in work strategies and being as disciplined as possible will yield results.
Take a look at the rest of the Forty Under 40 2024 winners.
