Eyes on Ghana

JULY 2016
HUMAN RESOURCES
New Members of the
Executive Management Team
Cornelia D. Noel – Vice President, Commercial
Ms. Noel has more than 25 years’ experience in the
energy sector where she held key positions in the areas
of Oil and Natural Gas Development, Asset Integrity
Management, Supply Chain Management, Strategic
Planning and Risk Management and Subsea/Deepwater
Development. She has worked both locally and
internationally for companies such as Shell, bpTT,
Chevron, BGTT and Petrotrin.
Throughout her extensive career in the industry, Ms.
Noel has gained significant expertise in oil and gas
asset integrity management, staff empowerment
and team building, and business asset and project
development. Prior to joining the NGC Group in
April 2016, Ms. Noel was Head Global SURF Projects
supporting Shell’s global deepwater projects. She has
been instrumental in driving the strategic vision of the
emerging subsea industry in her various work roles
and as Chairperson for the DeepStar/RPSEA Joint
Industry Project – Subsea Engineering Committee.
Ms. Noel holds a BSc. Electrical and Computer
Engineering (Electronics) from The University of the
West Indies, as well as successfully completed an MSc.
Subsea Engineering (Risk Management) at Cranfield
University. She also earned a Global Executive
MBA (Finance, M&A) from INSEAD and a Certificate
in Strategic Decision and Risk Management from
Stanford University.
She belongs to a number of professional associations
including the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society and
the Society of Underwater Technology. Ms. Noel is
also a member of the Technical Planning Committee
for the Offshore Technology Trade Show & Conference.
Regarding her new position, Ms. Noel stated:
“The Commercial Group is of strategic importance
as it is accountable for both the revenue and cost
challenges NGC faces. The VP Commercial role is
being redefined by new pressures, which creates its
own market dynamics. In many respects, the ongoing
depressed commodity prices and gas shortfall are the
key drivers underpinning these dynamics: a need for
government policy direction; a tougher emphasis on
efficiency and customer management, including a
drive to transform many core aspects of the business;
and the need to expand into new markets in the
pursuit of growth. All these factors underscore the
CORNELIA D. NOEL
need for me to take a ‘deep dive’ into a few core areas:
• NGC strategic plan and operations performance
• Customer delivered value
• Risk management
• Talent development
• Business processes: decision-making, economic
evaluation, portfolio management.
“The insights gained from this ‘deep dive’ informed the
next few important steps to effect a transformational
change at NGC. The key elements of this plan to be
delivered in the next few months include restructuring
the Commercial Group to deliver NGC’s strategic
goals; leveraging IT to simplify business processes;
moving forward on a few feasible projects needed
to consolidate the current business; and leadership
development strategy.”
In closing, Ms Noel stated that, “The job is a challenging
one with many unexpected twists and turns and to
be a success, one has to thrive on the adrenaline of
complexity and change.”
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