One on One with Celerant's Maarten Van Hasselt

Maarten Van Hasselt, Senior Vice President and Energy Sector Leader for Celerant, says: "Energy is politics, it keeps everything moving so it's very important and incredibly relevant." After three decades in the oil and gas sector, earlier this month Van Hasselt joined Celerant where he will lead a team to drive operational and behavioral change for oil and gas companies. "Doing more with less requires unlocking everyone's potential to implement strategy and obtain sustainable improvements," he says. Van Hasselt sat down with Consulting One on One to discuss his new role, the sector's challenges and how Celerant can help clients overcome them.

Consulting: As you take over as the energy sector lead for Celerant, what do you see as the current state of the sector?

Van Hasselt: Tight margins require executives to focus relentlessly on driving out costs while increasing utilization and preserving safe, environmentally responsible operations. The pressures are increasing while the industry experiences a decreasing talent pool. Doing more with less requires unlocking everyone's potential to implement strategy and obtain sustainable improvements. I think Jeroen Van der Veer, the former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, summed it up nicely. He always said the industry is driven by three hard truths: Demand will go up; easy oil and gas is gone. Second, it will become more and more difficult—and technically challenging—to find energy; and third, safety will continue to become more and more crucial to the industry. If you look over the long haul, that's been true. The underlying trends of the industry have pretty much remained the same. What has changed is the pace; they have all accelerated.